Far From Home
by ladyjade72290
Summary: Sam went to Georgia to spend the weekend with her best friend. Her timing could not have been worse. Now she is stranded far from home in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Will she be able to survive on her own? Rating mostly for language and violence for now. Enjoy and please review, I love hearing feedback.
1. Chapter 1

A/N This is my first fanfic, and I'm trying to stay as true to the characters from the show as I can. Let me know what you think.

* * *

Sam steps off the plane and the Georgia heat surrounds her. She hails a cab and dials her best friend.

"Andy, hey. I just got off the plane, I'm headed to a hotel right now. You ready to fuckin party tonight?"

"Hey Sammy. I tried to call you earlier, I cant hang out tonight. There's some emergency situation near the coast and my team got called to respond." Andy's voice hardly carries over the noise on his end. "I'm really sorry Sam. But it shouldn't take too long, we can party tomorrow."

"Alright, well you gotta do what you gotta do. I'll let you know where I'm staying as soon as I figure it out." a cab finally stops to pick her up as she ends the call "Can you take me to the nearest somewhat cheap hotel?"

"Sure thing sweetheart, but the cheaper ones are all outside the city, as long as that's ok." The older man greets her with a smile, "Visiting someone special?"  
"Hopefully." she says, trying not to sound disappointed "My best friend is in the army, we were supposed to hand out tonight, but he's got stuff to take care of."

Andy and Sam have been friends since grade school, been through everything together. Sophomore of high school, Andy decided to go into the service, said it was the best thing for him. Sammy supported him every step of the way, and they were both ecstatic when he was finally stationed on the east coast again.

"Here you go sweetheart. Enjoy your stay."

Sam takes her bags to her room and tried calling Andy. After having no luck, she leaves a voicemail and a text with her hotel and room number. The sun sets as she towels her hair dry, which means the oppressive heat starts to subside.

"Well, I'm not staying here and sulking." she pulls a black t-shirt over head, slips her cell, id, cash and room key into her pockets and grabs a quick bite to eat before getting another cab, deftly navigating around the groups of people crowding the sidewalks.

"Hey," she slides into the cab "know anywhere fun around here?"

"Yeah, absolutely." the driver starts away from the curb.

* * *

"Damn it Merle. Why we gotta go out again?" Daryl griped, running a hand through his hair.

"Oh come one baby brother. I haven't had me a decent piece of tail in weeks." the older Dixon slaps his brother on the back.

"Fine" Daryl replies, shrugging into his motorcycle vest "but don't go doing me and 'favors'. An I get to pick where we go."

"Alright, alright. But I ain't going in that piece of shit truck of yours. Can't take no one home in that thing."

The brothers step out into the cooling night and set off for Atlanta.

* * *

Sam steps into the slightly crowded building, a little hole in the wall bar that, the cab driver swore up and down, was where Collective Soul played their first gig. The music coming from the speakers swallows her as she makes her way to the bar and orders a jack and coke. The more she looks around, the more she likes the place, she claims a table against the wall, propping her feet up on the opposite chair and surveys the room as she sips her drink. Her eyes are drawn to the sound of shouting near the door, a burly redneck in cargo pants, a wife beater and a leather vest walks into the room, shouting at the bartender over the music, even though he's still almost half way across the bar. Sam shakes her head at the guy and almost doesn't notice the guy that slips in behind him. His short hair is disheveled as he runs his hand through it, worn jeans with a hole in the knee tucked into work boots and his grungy plaid shirt is missing the sleeves and has seen better days. She watches as he orders a beer and takes up a spot against the back wall of the bar. Heading back up to the bar to order herself a beer she spots the redneck leaning on the bar, trying to pick up a somewhat attractive blonde.

"Hey there sugar tits, that's a nice little body you got there." she giggles at his advances "What saw we go outside and I show you my hog?"

Sam can't help shaking her head and rolling her eyes at the tactless pick-up attempt.

From his spot at the back of the bar, Daryl watches as Merle leads some dumb blonde bitch down the hall towards the restrooms, not really surprised, that's why Merle dragged him out tonight after all. They'll hook up back there, Merle will come back and brag about his conquest, pound a few beers back and try again with a different girl. No matter how old they get some things never change.

Daryl looks around, someone finally catches his eye at the bar. Long legs in a pair of tight jeans and a great ass. He takes a long drink of his beer and watches her walk back to a table, her wavy dark hair hangs down past her shoulders, she's pretty, real pretty.

"And so far out of your league." he reminds himself.

He continues watching her, some young buck, drunk and probably full of himself, goes over to her and, beer in hand she goes off to dance with him. Merle comes back soon, fresh beer in his hand and starts telling him about the blonde. Daryl grunts and nods at the appropriate places, but he keeps watching the brunette.

"She's a tasty little bit, ain't she?" Merle comments, nodding in the brunettes direction "looks like she's be pretty wild. Maybe I'll go home with her. Looks like you'll be home alone tonight little brother." Daryl just grunts and downs the rest of his beer. Merle pushes away from the wall as she sits back down, and Daryl goes to get another drink.

Merle places a hand on her table, she looks up at him, "Can I help you?"

"How'd you like to see my hog? Maybe let me take you for a ride?" those lines always work, women love motorcycles.

She laughs "Nice try buddy. Maybe try the blonde again though, she looks stupid enough to fall for it twice."

"Hey now girl, no need to get nasty. I was just being nice and offering you a ride."

She looks him up and down, "Look, I'm not interested. We're not hooking up in the bathroom, you're not coming home with me, and I don't want to go for a ride. So please, just stop, and let me enjoy my beer."

Merle walks away in a huff and meets Daryl at the bar, "Fuckin dyke. Gimme a shot of whiskey."

Daryl just watches him, trying to suppress a smile, he heard the whole thing, "Going out for a smoke, want one?"

"Fuck you, asshole." Merle takes the shot and grabs another beer before walking away.

* * *

Sam walks outside, needing some fresh air after the encounter with that damn redneck. She spots the guy from earlier walking back from the parking lot, lighting a cigarette.

"Hey," she shouts, getting his attention while walking towards him "Sorry, can I bum one of those?"

Without saying a word he tosses her a crumpled pack and a zippo and leans against the wall.

"Thanks man." she hands him the pack and lighter "been trying to quit, but that guy. Ugh."

"Mah brother." He says, exhaling. His strong southern accent catching her a little off guard.

"Shit, I'm sorry. I didn't know, I mean" she tries unsuccessfully to back track the conversation.

"Naw" he says with a shrug "he's a bastard sometimes. Not used to getting shot down." he grinds the rest of his cigarette under the toe of his boot and heads back inside.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam wakes up in her hotel room to her ringing phone, she answers with a groggy "Yeah?"

"Sam! Finally" Andy's voice sounds relieved "look, things are a little worse than we thought. I'm back on base now, but they locked it down. We can't leave unless our group is relieving the response team."

"Andy, what's going on? Should I be worried?" Sam sits up in bed, concerned for her friends safety.

"I," he pauses "I can't really tell you. I'm sorry. We were told to keep this under wraps until it's over."

"Alright, fine. Call me when you can, keep me updated. Just let me know that you're ok." She sighs, at this moment hating his career choice.

"Ok mom." Andy jibes "Gotta go."

San turns on the tv, trying to hear something on the news about the mess near the coast, but it's already too late in the morning. As she is waiting for room service to bring her breakfast, she thinks about the night before, the redneck brothers, and finds herself thinking about how amazing his accent was, the one she got the cigarette from.

* * *

Daryl wakes up a little before eleven, Merle is already up, banging stuff around in the front of the house. He sits in bed for a while, blowing the smoke from his morning cigarette out the open window into the humid Georgia air, not wanting to deal with his still pissed off brother just yet. He takes one last drag and smiles, remembering the hottie that blew Merle off the night before, and how upset Merle was the rest of the night. He makes up his mind to go back tonight, maybe she'll be there again. Not that he likes her or anything, but any girl that ballsy is worth a little attention.

"Hey princess!" Merle yells from the living room "Get yer ass up! You gotta go to the store."

"Why can't you go?" he yells back, dragging on a somewhat clean pair of jeans.

"Cuz I'm making a deal later, ya know, getting us money?"

He grumbles to himself as he drives to the store, the crappy radio in his truck only broadcasting every other word of the station.

"outbreak… coast…ckness… an indoors."

Not wanting to deal with the station, he just switches the radio off and drives the rest of the way in silence.

* * *

Sam gathers her hair up in an elastic before going into the bar. Way busier on a Friday night, she has to elbow a few people aside to get a drink. She looks around the bar, hoping to find another empty table, but settles for leaning against the wall, the bass from the band playing in the corner making the walls vibrate. She always loved going to shows, the smaller the place the better, you can really feel the music that way. She sees the guy from last night leaning against the opposite wall, and thankfully no sign of his jerk brother and a smile creeps onto her face and she makes her way over to him, moving slowly like he would bolt if she moved too fast.

"Hey." she says, still a few feet away from him.

"Hey" he barely gives her a sideways glance.

"Look, I'm still really sorry about what happened last night, or at least bad mouthing him to you. I should have known better, you walked in together." she tries to explain.

"I said don worry bout it." he shrugs and swigs his beer "Merle's, ah, not for everyone. But he's blood."

"I know, but still…"

He cuts her off before she can say sorry again "Stop apologizing, yer starting to piss me off."

"Alright, fine."

" 'Sides, that was funny as hell, seein Merle get all bent out of shape cuz of you. He was still pissed this morning." he lets out a low chuckle.

"He's not here again, is he?" Sam asks, looking quickly around the room.

"Last I saw he was still sulking at home. But he's probly out at one of his dives by now." he finishes his beer with one final swig.

"Good. I think if I had to turn him down again, I woulda started throwing punches." Sam says with a little laugh, she takes a cigarette out from the pack she bought earlier that day and hands it to him "I owe you one for last night."

He takes it with an almost unnoticeable smile and tucks it behind his ear, "Thanks."

Sam winces as the band now on stage botches yet another cover and turns to him "This band sucks. Let's make them a little more interesting."

He raises an eyebrow in response "What'd ya have in mind?"

"Just a simple drinking game," she laughs "two shots when they screw up the lyrics, one when they screw up the music."

"Alright, sounds like fun. What's your poison?"

"Whiskey work for you?" Sam asks with a smile, he nods "I'll get the booze, you go hustle us up a table."

She orders a bottle of Jack and two shot glasses and makes her way over to the table he got them and sits down opposite him. "The only flaw here is at least one of us had to know how the song is supposed to go. And I'm Sam, by the way."

"Daryl." He says, pouring himself a shot.

* * *

Daryl set the almost empty bottle of Jack on the table. "How are you still standing girl?"

Sam laughs loud and gracefully sits back down as the song she had been dancing to ends. "Musta forgot to warn you, I'm half irish. Got whiskey in my blood."

"That just ain't fair. I figured you'd be gone after the first few songs."

She smiles and grabs the bottle, they stopped using the glasses a while ago, and takes a long drink leaving only a little left "I'm bout ready for a smoke, you?"

He finishes what little is left in the bottle and stands "Yeah, I could go for one."

They thank the bartender and give her the empty bottle and glasses and stumble slightly out the door into the cool night. Sam pulls a lighter from her pocket and offers it to Daryl.

Sam watches people slowly trickle out of the bar, "They're probably closing soon. Which means another night at the hotel by myself. Yay."

Daryl shrugs, either ignoring or oblivious to her attempts, and only slurs slightly when saying bye "Thanks for the drinks. See ya round."

She watches him walk away, towards him truck probably, and cant help pout. They had so much fun earlier, she thought for sure… she sighs and shakes her head as she plops down in the back seat of the cab, whiskey finally catching up with her.

Daryl sits in the cab of his truck, window open letting in the cool night air. He lets out a heavy sigh and lights another cigarette. What is it about this chick? He cant remember the last time he did that. Just sat and talked with someone, never mind an attractive someone. Usually he gets stuck with some dumb girl because Merle is trying to hook up with her friend. He takes a deep drag trying to clear his head. "She was just some girl, probably never gonna see her again anyway."

He peels out of the almost empty parking lot and whips down the empty back roads towards home.

* * *

Sam drops her room key when her ringing phone makes her jump. She glances a the clock before she answers it. "Andy, what the hell. It's almost one in the morning." she tries hard not to slur too much, but between exhaustion and the whiskey, she doesn't do so well.

"Sam, your hotel, you're not in the city, right?" the anxiety and stress clear in his voice.

"No, its like ten minutes outside. Why? Andy, what's wrong?" she's never heard him this frantic before.

"Ok, stay there. They're gonna tell you to get into the city, but don't do it. It's not safe. It's some sort of infection, what we were trying to contain, on the coast. Don't let anyone who looks sick anywhere near you. Never let any of them bite you, that's how it spreads. The CDC is working on a cure or an antidote or something." there is so much noise in the background she can hardly hear him "It spreads fast. The city is the worst place to be. They think it will be easier to protect, but they didn't see the coast."

"Andy, please calm down. You're scaring me." her voice shakes, she sits on the bed and pulls her knees to her chest.

"They quarantined a whole town, only about half at them were sick when we got there. The next day the whole town was gone. Everyone was infected. The first person? The one to bring the town down? A little girl. Just five or six. The only way to stop them is to hit them in the head." there is a loud crash and more noise "I gotta go. I love you Sam. Be safe. Stay out of the city."

"I love you too Andy. Take care of yourself." she wipes a tear from her cheek as she hangs up the phone and curls up on the bed, trying to process all the information just dumped on her


	3. Chapter 3

A/N I'll try to do at least one chapter update a week. Shit really starts to hit the fan now. Let me know what you think of everything so far, I love getting feedback.

* * *

The pounding in her head drags Sam from sleep, she slowly walks to the bathroom, the light from the windows causing searing pain in her brain. She turns on the cold tap and fumbles in her bag for the bottle of aspirin. A sob escapes her throat when her conversation with Andy fights it's way to the front of her mind.

* * *

Daryl wakes up on the old couch in the living room, a spring digging into his side and his neck aching from the poor position. Merle is sitting in the recliner, beer in hand and surprisingly watching the news. "Watchya watchin that crap for?"  
"All the stations are like this. Some emergency broadcast bullshit,"

He swings his legs off the couch and sits up. "Turn it up. What'r they talking about?"

"Something about the coast. An outbreak or something."

"First signs of the infection are high fever and delirium," the anchor reports "Aviod contact with anyone that appears ill. The infection is highly contagious and most commonly spread through the bite on an infected person."

Merle shuts off the tv " 's all bullshit. Member all that hype bout pig flu and bird flu and all them other flues. This is no different."

"I dunno man, this seem pretty serious." Daryl says, but Merle isn't paying any attention.

* * *

Sam turns off the little tv in her room and looks at her phone again, wishing Andy would call her. She goes to the window, trying to alleviate the trapped feeling that's set up shop in her gut. Military helicopters fly over the hotel, and once again she wishes she had driven down here instead of flown, at least then she would have her own car. The news reporter didn't make it sound so bad, but they're probably trying to control panic. Andy sounded scared, he's never scared. She tries again to call her mom, or Cally, her sister, but no one answers. Absolutely alone in the middle of no where in a state she doesn't know her way around, without any knowledge of how long this will last. She can' help getting the feeling she is well and completely screwed.

"No! God damn it. There will be no pity party." she forces herself off the bed and gets dressed in fresh clothes, "You will not be helpless. Go find a map, learn your war around the town at least. If it's as bad as Andy says, you're all you've got."

Motivated by her pep talk she laces up her combat boots, pulls back her hair and heads out for some supplies. There is a small general store right down the street from her hotel. She grabs a basket and a road map right inside the door. There is a middle aged woman at the counter talking to the cashier, Sam can only hear parts of the conversation as she shop s around.

"Oh it's just awful, three towns quarantined on the coast. Can you believe that May? The military is doing what they can, but people keep getting sick."

"I know dear. My oldest boy took his family, packed up the car and headed here as soon as they blocked off that first town. And thank the Lord he did. His town got hit with it today. Said he saw people just wandering the streets. In their night clothes. Can you believe that? Poor things must have had the fever, not in their right minds anymore. They said it makes you delirious, but I can't imagine walking out of the house in my bed clothes, sick or not." the cashier, clearly an old southern belle, can't stop the gossip, even now.

Sam fills the basket with bottled water and instant food, flashlights and extra batteries before lugging it up to the front of the store. The woman starts ringing her out "Are there any hardware stores near by?"

The woman smiles at her "Sure thing sweetheart, Harpers is right down the road. You take a left at the end of the street here, at the lights, and it's about half way down that road. You can't miss it."

She finds the hardware store without any trouble, just like the clerk said and heads straight towards the small lawn and garden aisle. "Andy said to hit them in the head, they're dangerous, obviously. So it's probably a safe bet to have at least something as a weapon, and then there's the looters." She thinks to herself while browsing the saws and axes, and finally spots a few smaller hatchets hanging on a hook, grabs two and a tool belt small enough to fir around her waist.

"You look like yer preparing for a battle." The older clerk says, surveying her purchase.

"Yeah," Sam lies with a laugh "got some pretty persistent saplings to take out, you know? Too big to just rip up, too small to warrant breaking out the saw."

"I sure do." he says, good naturedly "an I'm sure you know what you're doing."

Sam thanks the man and starts making her way back to the hotel. She turns on the news as she is organizing all her things. Even more towns infected, hospitals over run with the sick and dieing. People are finally starting to panic, those left uninfected are looting their neighbors houses and stores, stealing cars. Sam watches live feed from a news copter of one of the towns. People are shambling around in the streets, one of the people started going after an officer trying to get a family to safety. He aims his firearm but the woman keeps coming, one shot fired into her shoulder spins her around, but nothing more than that, the officer backs up but she keeps coming, two more body shots but she wont stop. He finally shoots her in the head and she drops to the pavement like a pupper who's strings have been cut.

* * *

Daryl watches the woman on tv drop to the ground when the cop shoots her in the face. "Bro, this is serious, they're fuckin shootin people. Those fuckers just won't go down."

"What'r you so worried about? Dumb asses don't know enough by now not to get themselves bit. Their own damn fault."

"Yeah, but," Daryl tries to argue, but Merle cuts him off.

"Not our damn problem little brother." he storms out and slams the door

"Not yet." he says to the empty room, the roar of Merles bike fading. He heads to the small closet in him room and takes out his crossbow and quiver, looking it over, making sure everything is in working order. Better to be prepared than caught with your pants down, no matter what Merle thinks.

* * *

The lights in her hotel room flicker slightly while Sam refills a few of her empty water bottles. She jumps when her phone rings and drops the half full bottle into the sink.

"Sammy! Shit Sammy." Andy's voice comes over the static filled line. "I gotta get out of here, the base is compromised. We're over run. One of the bastards from the first town got bit. Fucker didn't tell anyone, before we knew what was going on."

"Andy!" Sam tries to get his attention through the static and his panic "Please calm down. Have you been bit? I still don't know what's going on."

"They're not people anymore. They're monsters."

The emergency broadcast blares from the television in the other room "The president has declared a stare of emergency. It is advised you head to the nearest city and await military action. Avoid all infected persons. Shelters will be set up inside the city."

"Sam, you listen to me. Stay the fuck out of the city. You'll never make it out alive." the static gets worse along with the shouting and commotion on his end " stay at your hotel, I'll try to come get you. If I don't get there in three days… help. Find … woods, camp if" his phone cuts off completely.

"Andy!" she screams into the static on the other end. The only person she knows in thousands of miles, and her only reliable source of information. Gone in a burst of static.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N This chapter gets a little dark at the end. Let me know what you think of the newbies, there's a few directions I could go with them.

* * *

Daryl sits in the living room listening to the same broadcast that has been playing since the night before, telling everyone to go to the city and wait for the military.

"Bunch of bull shit. Cramming everyone into the city. We look out for our own." Merle kicks one of the cabinets shut. " We don't need the damn military. Right little brother?"

Half of the houses on their street were empty, their neighbors fled to the city for safety. There were a few stubborn people refusing to leave their houses, older people set in their ways, and people like them. Don't trust the military or government. So far the looters had left the neighborhood alone, but it's clear by the few shots on the news that people are starting to get desperate and crazy. Daryl stares out the window at the few people wandering the streets, one of the older neighbors is just standing at her door step, her back to the street staring at the door. Slowly the door opens and a shriek of delight comes from inside as the woman's grown daughter embraces her. The screams suddenly change and Daryl can see the woman frantically trying to escape her mother. Blood starts pouring down her shoulder and arm as her mother rips her throat out, every one of the people out on the street turns towards the screaming woman and before he can fully process what is going on there is a feeding frenzy across the street.

"Yo Merle. Get in here." Daryl gets as close to the small window as he dares "We should probably consider moving, or fortifying this place or something."

Merle joins him at the window and stares at the bloody mess that used to be a woman and the mass of people continuing to rip her to pieces. "Just lock the door an don't let any of those sick bastards in."

One of them looks up and those dead eyes make Daryl's skin crawl. The woman, judging by the clothes, slowly pushes herself to her feet and starts making her way over to his side of the street, the others slowly follow her. Daryl quickly closes the make shift blinds and backs away from the window, knocking over a floor lamp and shattering the bulb in the process.

"The hell was that?" Merle storms in, hunting rifle ready to fire.

"I, uh, sorry" Daryl tries to right the broken lamp "they started coming across the street."

The pounding starts on the door and the window. Merle pulls back the curtains slightly "Go get your keys. And whatever else you can grab. We're leaving."

They both head off, the first think Daryl grabs is his bow and quiver.

* * *

Sam walks through the deserted hotel, searching rooms for anything she can use. No luck. People left like crazy when they were told to head to Atlanta, but it seems they were all pretty thorough with their packing. She comes to a locked door, most of them were just left open in the rush.

"Hello?" she knocks on the door "Is anyone in there?"

The door opens a crack, "Who are you? Are you military, come to save us?"

The voice sounds male, but still somewhat young, despite the attempt to make it deeper, she responds in a calm voice "I'm not military, but I'll help you if I can. My name is Sam, Samantha."

The door opens a bit wider to reveal a kid, probably not even twenty years old, "I'm Kyle" he steps aside to let her in and Sam sees the girl curled up in a chair on the far side of the room "That's Christina. We tried to get to the city, but we don't have a car, and no one would give us a ride. We figured the army would be around eventually and we could just wait for them."

"I don't know that that's the best idea. I don't think the military is coming." Sam tries to break the news to them gently.

"What do you mean?" Christina sounds close to tears.

"I think they're trying to focus on the city. But the city isn't safe, you're better off here."

"What are you talking about?" Kyle steps in front of Christina protectively "They said the city would be safe, shelters and everything."

"I know, but I don't think they fully understand what's going on," Sam tries to explain.

Christina shouts from the chair, her short dark hair flying around her face as she tries to push Kyle out of the way, "Oh, and you do? You know more than the government and the Army? Please tell me what the hell is going on!"

"Chris!" Kyle stares at her in shock.

"It's ok, I know how you feel. I don't know what's going on, at least not for sure. I wish I did. I wish I could tell you something that would make you feel better. But I can't." she takes a deep breath and calmly tries to explain to them everything Andy had told her. "That's all I know. The city is no good, and I doubt the Army is much help either."

The three of them sit in silence for a few minutes. Kyle finally speaks up "So where does that leave us?"

"I don't know," Sam sighs heavily, "I guess we can stay here as long as we can, or make our way around Atlanta. I think my friend was trying to tell me to go to the woods before his cell cut out."

"You've got to be kidding me. You seriously expect us to camp in the woods? We'll be completely unprotected." Chris is starting to get hysterical again.

"I never said you have to come." Sam snaps back, fed up with her constant criticism "Feel free to stay here and keep waiting to be rescued."

Kyle moves to put an arm around Chris, "You heard what she said, we're on our own. She's only trying to help."

Sam leans against the wall and watches them whisper back and forth to each other. Kyle keeps stroking her back, trying to keep her calm. All of this is so crazy, but they'll all have a better chance if they join together.

* * *

Daryl pulls the heavy blanket back over the window and secures it. "Man, the streets are crawling with em."

With his truck, Merle's bike thrown in the back, they had been able to avoid physical confrontation, even if they did have to run a few of them over. They have been in this house for a few days, windows covered so they can't see the movement inside, one of them always on watch. Luckily most of the houses they have found have been empty of people, but pretty well stocked. Despite Merle's griping, he still helps himself to any booze in the houses.

"Tomorrow we get out of town. Hit the woods, do some hunting." Merle says "Sick of running around these damn neighborhoods. We got skills, can survive in the woods, we should be using em."

"Can't take your bike into the woods." he simply states, cleaning the bow in his lap.

"We make a camp somewhere off the roads, hunt our food. You an me man. We take care of our own."

He listens as Merle continues to talk about how they can make it on their own. Maybe he's right. Maybe they will make it on their own. It certainly wouldn't be the first time they've had to take care of them selves.

* * *

"There is so much stuff in here," Chris exclaims as they look around the hotel kitchen "I don't think many people thought to look down here for stuff."

"No" Kyle says with a grim expression "they all thought they would be taken care of in the city."

Sam just keeps looking around. They finally came to the agreement that it would be best for them to stick together, at least for a while.

"Grab as much as you can, focus on canned foods, stuff that doesn't go bad," Sam instructs, hanging onto anything that could be used to carry the food "try to find some of those buffet burner things too. We probably won't have electricity for much longer."

"You don't sound like you're from around here." Chris bluntly states while tossing fruit to Kyle.

"I'm not, I was supposed to be visiting my friend, the one who let me know about all this." she explains

Her thoughts drift back to Andy. She can't count how many times she has tried to call him, but it did nothing more than drain her battery, and with the uncertain electricity that isn't a good thing.

She tries desperately not to think about it, "So what's the deal with you two?"

"Kyle's my brother, he came down with me to check out some of the colleges. We don't live too far away, so we just took the bus." Chris explains, leaning against one of the prep tables.

"Why not just drive? You just said you're not too far away."

"Kyle was only visiting for a few weeks, so he flew back from Cali instead of driving, and I didn't want to leave my parents without a car." she suddenly gets an absolutely devastated look on her face and turns to her brother "Kyle. Mom, Dad, what about them?"

She dissolves into tears as her brother wraps his arms around her, "I'm sure they're fine Chris. You know how stubborn they can be."

The look he gives Sam holds almost as much pain as his sisters, but he has to be strong for her. Sam turns away, giving them a little privacy and continues gathering what food and supplies she can.

Finally they return to Sam's room, their make shift base, and start sorting out what they brought back and adding it to the supplies Sam had already gathered. Chris mopes around the room, still not convinced about their parents, despite Kyle's best efforts. Sam hasn't had time in all this to think about her mom, or her sister, or if they're ok. She can't afford to now either, not how that she's got two other people to look out for.

* * *

"There's so many out there. Where the fuck they all coming from?" Daryl lets the curtain fall over the almost dark window, "How are we getting out of here?"

"We start bustin skulls little brother, it's us or them now. Kill or be killed." Merle sets aside his freshly oiled hunting knife and starts on his rifle "We fight our way out, only way we know how."

"That's good and all, but where are we gonna go? As much as I hated that place, it was home." he steps away from the window, farther into the room.

"You questioning me, brother?" Merle stands up, gun pieces fall to the floor, "You think I can't keep us alive? You think you have a better plan? Little brother knows best, is that it?"

He watches his brother storm towards him, hands balled into fists at his side. He should have knows better than to voice his doubts. Merle always knows what's best for them, how to get out of any jam. Merle is right in his face now, shouting and shoving him against the wall. Daryl doesn't fight back, that only makes it worse, even when the hits start coming he just waits it out. Eventually Merle steps back and turns away from him.

Daryl licks the blood off his busted lip, already starting to swell. "Sorry Merle. You're right, you know what you're doing. Sorry."

"You're damn right I do. You'd best not forget that again. We move out tomorrow." Merle picks up the scattered pieces of him gun and goes back to work without another word.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N I promise they will meet up soon. I'm trying to orchestrate it just right, not rush things. Hopefully next chapter. Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any reviews. 3

* * *

"Rise and shine mother fucker." Merle kicks the small bed Daryl fell into the night before.

Daryl opens his eyes with only mild difficulty with the left one, his lip is still a little swollen and tender. He gathers what little he has in the room and throws it in his oack, threads his knife into his belt and slings his bow over his shoulder.

"So where we headed?" he asks Merle, leaning against the door frame.

"I figure our hunting spot ain't far from here. Ya know that park, they've got some trails even your poor old truck should be able to handle." Merle plans out the route they have to go.

"What's it looking like outside?" Those geeks still hanging around?" he heads over to the window.

"Of course they are. Few of em wandered away couple of hours ago. Don't worry little brother, there's still enough to fight through." Merle's eyes get a sick little glint in them when he brings up the fighting.

"Don't look like there's many between here and the truck, maybe we should head out soon." he says, counting only a small handful between the door and the truck.

"We can take out a few of em, no problem." Merle hoists his gun onto his sholder.

Daryl opens the door and steps out into the early morning fog. The first geek's facing away from them, he sends an arrow through the back of it's skull. Merle fires of a round into one just making it's way around the truck. The sound of the gunshot echos through the neighborhood, and before they know it, twenty more are starting to surround them and the truck, emerging though the mist. Merle raises his gun to take out another one.

"No." Daryl hisses at he lets another bolt fly. "Sound draws more. We'll be over run if you shoot again."

Merle shoots him a glare, but slings his gun over his shoulder anyway and picks something up off the lawn next to the steps. An aluminum bat.

"Let's go, little brother." he doesn't try to hide the delight in his voice as he swings the bat full force into the head of the geek shambling towards him.

They fight their way to the truck, throw their bags in the back and take off. Merle hangs out the window of the truck swatting away and of the geeks that get close to them with the bat, laughing and hollering as he does.

* * *

Sam wakes up before anyone else and just enjoys the early morning quiet. A few floors up, the noise from the creeps walking through the streets doesn't quite reach them, but scavenging yesterday, there were a few spots that were pretty bad, they sounded so close. The lobby is by far the worst. They're right outside, and the glass doesn't do much to keep the sound out. That freaked them all out. Sam tried to keep them as far away from the lobby as they could be, fortunately they have yet to actually be confronted by any of them, right now the hotel is the ideal safe house. Plenty of food, still has running water for now, and it's secure. But who knows if the old custodial supplies through the handles can keep out someone who is determined enough. She sighs and looks down at the street. There aren't a whole lot down there, but none of them are brave enough to leave yet, not to mention they have no way to get anywhere, other than walking.

Kyle approaches her quietly "This still doesn't feel real."

"I know," she looks at him "We're gonna have to leave here soon, or at least start looking outside the hotel for supplies. We've almost tapped this place out. We can last a while, but we'll have to leave eventually."

Kyle looks at the still sleeping Chris and sighs, " I know, maybe we can find a car or something. She's just so young. I have to think of her before anyone else."

"We'll do what we can, I promise"

The sound of Chris stirring draws their attention away from the window. She sits up and yawns, her dark hair a halo of chaos around her face, reminding Sam how young she really is.

"So what's for breakfast?" she asks, stretching.

"Sam, I know you said no perishables," Kyle gives Sam a guilty look as he digs through some of the bags, "but I couldn't help it, as long as we're staying here, why waste food, right?"

He produces a carton of eggs, a package of bacon and a can of corned beef hash. Chris squeals with delight when her brother starts gathering all the cooking materials he needs. Sam smiles as the siblings go about making breakfast.

"I guess you were right," Sam forks the last of the food into her mouth "no point in wasting food if we're just here."

Kyle and Chris nod in agreement.

"So," Kyle leans back, his plate on the floor in front of him "what now?"

* * *

Daryl parks the truck as deep into the woods as he dares. They left the last house behind them about fifteen miles ago. They stopped at a gas station a few miles back, cleared out what food was left, and Merle somehow managed to get the pump working, taking out a few more of those eaters in the process.

"Let's get going. I'm hungry." Merle jumps out of the truck and grabs his rifle, Daryl stared at the gun pointedly. "What? You want me to hunt squirrels with a baseball bat?"

"Guess not, maybe there's none out here?"

"Even if there are" Merle slaps him on the back "we know how to take care of em. Ain't that right baby brother."

Merle heads off in one direction, Daryl in another. He picks up a trail pretty fast and before long he has a string of squirrels and rabbits slung over his shoulder. Every once in a while he'll hear a shot in the distance, but he's been slowly working his way back to the truck and the sound of the shots.

"Yo, Merle." he calls out "MERLE!"

He follows Merle's path through the woods. Rustling leaves off to his left catches his attention, one of those damn eaters, drawn to the noise of the gun, no doubt. He looks around for more before he lets it get just a little closer to Merle. Merle is still oblivious to the eater, even though it's only a few feet from him. He hears the groans and turns around just in time to see it fall to the ground, an arrow protruding from it's eye.

"What the fuck? What was that? That damn thing was only feet from me." Merle goes to shove him while he's trying to retrieve the bolt.

"What the hell man," Daryl avoids the shove ad frees his arrow, wiping it on the grass "I had eyes on it the whole time. I was just fucking with you a little."

"Well it ain't funny." Merle kicks the corpse, the head detaches from the rotted neck and rolls a few feet away. That breaks the tension between them and they walk down a little hill and gather up the few squirrels Merle shot.

"Member when we would come out here with the old man?" Merle tosses one of the squirrels to Daryl "Those trips?"

"Yeah," Daryl laughs "you mean, the old man would spend the whole weekend on a bender and passed out in the truck. Me an you, trying to catch dinner with those damn bb guns."

"Finding some cute honey and messin around with her, right under her parent's noses." he lets out a throaty chuckle.

"Naw Merle, that was just you."

* * *

For a minute there this morning, it almost seemed like the world hadn't gone to hell. Just a group of friends hanging out. But that doesn't happen anymore, can't happen anymore. Not with those crazies out there, trying to eat everyone.

"So, we need to come up with a plan, we can't stay here forever." Sam addresses the problem again.

"I want to go find Mom and Dad. Or at least find out if anything happened to them." Chris' voice breaks a little at the end.

"Ok, I guess we can try that," Sam unfolds a state map she had grabbed from the store before all this "so where's home?"

Kyle points to a small spot on the map, north of where they are, and a little closer to the coast. Sam's heart sinks, but she marks the map anyway. What chance does a little town have against this, there is no way their folks are still alive. But Sam keeps her mouth shut. Everyone needs a little hope, right?

"That's way too far to walk, and too dangerous. We'll need a car." she thinks for a minute, "Maybe we can get on the roof? See what's close to us that we can get."

"What if we can't find anything?" Chris asks.

"We'll check some of the neighborhoods around here, and on the off chance we can't find one single car, we'll have to start walking until we do."

"To the roof?" Kyle asks, standing.

They climb the two floors of stairs to the last floor of rooms, and luckily there is a door at the end of the hall marked roof access. Up another dark set of stairs and they finally reach the roof. It takes some work and a trip to the supply closet for a pry bar before the door opens, but they finally get it. A scuffing neat the corner of the building draws their attention, a figure pushes to its feet and turns to face them.

Chris screams when she sees the bloody mess that used to be this persons face and neck, the nose is gone, taking a good chunk of eye with it, and there is a gap in the neck all the way back to the spine. At the sound of the scream the thing lurches towards them, making sick noises as it tries to use it's mangled throat. Sam reaches for her hatchet, realizing too late that she left the whole belt back in the room.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N Thanks for the great reviews guys! I love hearing from you, keep 'em coming. This one is a little long, but totally worth it. Enjoy!

* * *

The three of them stare in horror as that think comes at them. As if a switch was flipped, Kyle lunges at the thing before it can get any closer, swinging the pry bar wildly in front of him. The thing keeps trying to reach Kyle before he lands a lucky swing, hitting it hard on the side of the head. The skull caves in and it falls to the ground. Kyle stands, staring at the body, breathing heavily, Chris whimpers and runs to her brother. Sam looks at Kyle, impressed, and slaps him on the back.

"Good job man." Sam tries to recover quickly "Better check for more."

Kyle nods "O… ok."

Sam looks over the edge of the building at the street. A few of the crazies are wandering around, she concentrates on the cars left behind. Chris may be right, there aren't many cars around.

"Sam, over here." Kyle calls from the other side of the roof. "That one looks like it might work."

The car he is talking about is parked across the street, drivers side door open, dome light still glowing.

"It's at least got power, who knows about keys. Silly question, but do either of you know how to hotwire a car?"

Chris shakes her head, Kyle speaks up "I probably could, they do it all the time in the movies."

Sam smiles at his enthusiasm, "I'm sure you could, but I don't think we would have time for trial and error. What we'll need is a screwdriver, flathead."

They head back into the building, hoping to find what they need,

* * *

Merle throws another log on the fire, trying to get it hot enough to cook on. Daryl sits near by skinning their kills, he looks at Merle over the fire.

"We can't just live out here forever. We're gonna have to travel eventually. There's gotta be other people too."

"Yeah, an when we come across em, we take what we need, what they have, and we get out. We don't need anyone else dragging us down."

Daryl goes back to prepping the food.

* * *

"Alright now, we gotta do this quick and as quiet as we can." Sam explains to Kyle and Chris.

They are crouched behind the reception desk with all their supplies stuffed into whatever bags they could find, keeping out of sight of the crazies.

"Kyle and I will go out the back, Chris, you make sure the door is secure after us. We'll get the car and come back to the door to get you."

Chris looks between Sam and Kyle "No, I don't want to be left in here. I can help, I'll help watch your back too. Me and Kyle on look out, gotta be better than just one. Right?"

"Chris, I dunno," Kyle looks at Sam "You'd be safer in here."

"But we could bring all the stuff out with us. Just go from the car without coming back." she argues.

"Kyle, she might be right. It would be safer, faster. Even if we all just jump in the car and go."

Kyle still looks unsure, Chris continues to raise her voice "Don't leave me here. I can help!"

"Ok, ok" Kyle flinches back "I get it. But you stay between me and Sam and you get in the car and shut the door, right away. You'll need a weapon, something just in case."

Chris nods. Sam hands her one of the hatchets "Here, you can borrow this, I won't need both. But I want it back."

They creep out the back door of the kitchen, the car is across the street at the end of the alley. Sam counts to three and they make a run for it. They make it to the car without being seen, but the back doors are locked. Sam frantically tries to unlock the doors, since the car doesn't have power locks. Kyle shoves Chris into the car as soon as she gets the door open and takes out the crazy that is coming at him before following Chris into the car. Sam jams the screwdriver into the ignition and the car roars to life. They speed away from the small group of crazies following them.

* * *

"I'm gonna go back into town, see if there's anything we can use. You need anything?" Daryl asks.

"I wouldn't say no to more ammo. Only got a few boxes left. But make sure you leave my bike here. I don't need you losing my stash."

"Yeah, yeah." Daryl rolls the bike off the back of his truck.

"See if you can find some booze too." Merle says as Daryl climbs into the truck.

He drives through the woods, window open, enjoying the warm air. He only starts to notice the eaters as he gets closer to town. A few of them hear his truck and start to follow him, but the truck is too fast and he loses them after a minute. He parks the truck not far away from the center of town, grabs his bow and heads in.

* * *

Sam glances at the fuel gauge for the hundredth time, the empty light staring at her.

"Guys, we're gonna have to stop soon. We didn't have much fuel to start with, and the last thing I want is to break down in the middle of the road."

Kyle looks at the map, "There is a turn coming up that will take you into a town. Not very big, but they should have a gas station."

Sam turns where Kyle tells her and soon the trees are thinning and buildings come into view. She stops at the station at the edge of town, praying the pump still works. They head inside the station, on the look out for any crazies inside. Kyle takes out one behind the counter, probably the poor clerk judging by the uniform.

"Look for any instruction manual, a list of directions or something." he instructs.

Sam helps him dig through the papers and binders behind the counter while Chris goes through the store, grabbing anything useful.

"Got it." Kyle drops an old packet on the counter, "Looks like we'll need someone to go turn on the generator in back and pump in here and we should be good."

"So who gets the fun job of running around outside?" Chris asks, dropping a bag full of stuff on the counter.

Sam sighs, already knowing the answer "I will."

"Hang on a sec, that generator's gonna be loud, probably draw them all here. And we don't know how many other people have done this already, or how much gas the generator has it's self." Kyle points out "It looks like there's a decent amount of cars around, we can get gas from some of them."

Sam nods in surprise, realizing just how bad the original plan actually was. "Ok, but we'll need gas cans or something to carry it in."

* * *

Daryl tosses the bag of ammo onto the floor of the truck. The grocery store was a mess, but no one thought to get anything from the gun store. He tucks his new pistol into his waist band, just in case, and goes back out to try to find booze for Merle, because if he comes back without any, he will never shut up about it.

So far he's only had to take out a few eaters, able to sneak around the rest. The sound of metal on metal nearby draws not only his attention, but the attention of the eaters. He looks to see there the noise came from and sees a couple of kids by one of the cars in front of the diner. He swears to himself as a group of seven or eight eaters head towards them.

They're just kids, they've got no chance against all those eaters.

"Damn it." he fires a bolt into one of the eaters at the back of the crowd.

* * *

"Just the sound of us prying open the gas cover attracted all the crazies in the immediate area. Imagine how bad it would have been if we fired up the generators." Kyle points out calmly.

Sam can hear them getting closer and wills the gas to flow faster.

"You guys got this?" she asks again worried about them.

"Just make sure that gas keeps coming." Kyle reassures, his stance ready.

Chris keeps nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other as if fighting against her flight instinct.

"Remember Chris, aim for the head and keep your mouth shut, you don't want any of their blood getting in there." Kyle can sense her nervousness.

The noise from the crazies increases as they see Kyle and Chris. Kyle takes down the first one with a well aimed hit to the temple. Chris has some trouble landing a hit on the one after her, but she manages.

* * *

Daryl watches from behind a car as the two kids actually do alright at first. The boy takes the first few down no problem, but the girl isn't doing so well, by the time her first one falls, three more have crowded around her. Daryl takes out the last two and a few stragglers trying to join the fun. The boy takes out one of the three, but another catches him by surprise and pins him against the car.

* * *

Kyle watches as the crazy attacking Chris slowly starts to gain the advantage, and he is trapped by the one in front of him, his pry bar on the ground between him and Chris. He struggles to get this one off of him so he can help Chris.

"Kyle!" Chris screams for her brother, fighting back as hard as she can, but still losing.

Sam hears Chris' screams and stands up, almost knocking the gas can over in the process, she runs to help.

Chris' locked elbows give out and the crazy lunges for her neck, but it never makes it, instead it falls to the pavement with the hilt of a knife sticking out of the base of it's skull.

Sam instead turns to Kyle, still pinned against the car, and drives her hatchet into the back of it's head.

Chris runs to her brother, sobbing. Sam searches the area for their savior and her jaw drops when she sees the man walking towards them to retrieve his knife.

* * *

Daryl pulls the last arrow out of the dead eater and turns to yell at the kids when he sees who is with them.

"Holy shit." he mutters to himself and takes the knife from her outstretched hand.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N Finally! They meet up again! Hopefully I'll be able to move things along a little quicker now. Hope you guys enjoy this one.

* * *

"Hey," Sam says, still a little dumbstruck, and her cheeks flush with embarrassment, or is that just the Georgia heat?

"Thanks for that." She motions to Chris, who is sobbing in her brothers arms.

"The hell are you guys doing anyway?" he cleans his knife off with a rag from his back pocket, he looks at Chris "Shouldn't you be tucked away, safe in bed somewhere?'

Chris just glares at him until Sam steps in "I don't think there _is _anywhere safe anymore. But I'm open to suggestions."

Daryl shrugs "Avoid people."

"Right, cuz that's sooo easy." Chris recovers, stepping away from Kyle.

"So far I've been just fine." he shoots back and turns to walk away "Don't need to be taking lip from some little shit. Never mind that I _saved you life_."

Sam jogs after him and grabs his arm, "Hang on. Listen, she's sixteen and scared. Give her a break."

Daryl stops and looks back at the girl.

"It's just them now. We're trying to find their parents." Sam explains "It's only a few hours away now."

"So whadaya want from me?" he asks, already knowing the answer.

"Come with us? You obviously know how to take care of yourself." Sam asks.

"I only came back here for supplies. My brother's waiting for me back at our camp." Daryl thinks about Merle, probably enjoying the alone time with his stash.

"Please? We could really use the back up." Sam all but begs.

He is quiet for a few long seconds, "Fine, I got nothing better to do."

"And your brother won't mind me borrowing you for a few hours?" Sam asks, recalling the abrasive older brother.

"Honestly, he probably won't even notice. Not as long as I bring back what he asked me for."

Sam heads back to Kyle and Chris "He's coming with us. Let's try a few more cars, try to fill the tank before it gets much later."

Kyle raises an eyebrow at Sam, but doesn't move "We still don't even know who _he _is."

"This is Daryl. Daryl, Chris and Kyle." she turns back to Chris and Kyle with a small smile "He's, uh, a friend."

Kyle looks at Sam skeptically, but accepts her answer "So how much gas did we get from that car?"

* * *

Daryl leans against their car and watches them figure out how much more fuel they need. He still can't remember what prompted him to agree to this. Something about that girl, she's a fighter. She probably would have talked him into it anyway.

"Daryl," Sam calls to him, waving him over "Kyle and I are gonna hit the cars over this way, I need you and Chris to get the ones over there/ we'll get as much as we can now, so we don't have to stop after dark."

"Hold up, I ain't no baby sitter." Daryl starts to argue against helping Chris, "I already saved her ass once."

"Exactly. I'd feel better if she goes with you," Sam explains "she'll have a better shot if more of those things show up. Sorry Chris."

Chris winces a little at the lack of faith, but offers Daryl a weak smile. Daryl sighs and grabs two of the gas cans "Let's do this, then."

Chris' gaze darts nervously around as she settles behind the car and starts the siphon.

"I got you covered, you just keep that gas flowing." Daryl reassures her.

* * *

The whole process doesn't take long, and they are back on the road before two, according to the car clock. They pass the time in a somewhat awkward silence, Chris keeps talking about their parents, and how she can't wait to see them again. Kyle starts rummaging around the cluttered floor of the back seat and hands Sam a square case.

She flips open the case and smiles at the small stack of cd's in her lap, "Score."

Daryl reaches over from the passenger seat and grabs the case off her lap "How bout you focus on the road, work on not getting us all killed."

Chris pipes up from the back seat "Why are you driving so slow anyway? We're the only people on the road. It's not like any cops are gonna catch you anyway. You're like a little old lady."

The three of them start laughing, and Sam even catches Daryl cracking a smile. Daryl flips through the small cd collection a few times before finally sliding one into the car stereo. The music that plays isn't anything that Sam knows, but as the singer starts crooning about a lost love, Kyle perks up a little.

"Hey Chris, this is that song Gram always used to sing. Remember?" she listens for a minute, but doesn't say anything "She's be doing laundry, or washing the dishes and singing this to herself. You don't remember?"

Kyle stares at her until something clicks for her, "Oh my God, you're right. I Haven't heard it in years, but that's definitely it."

The two of them sing along to the rest of the sing until Sam turns off the highway.

"Now guys, don't get your hopes too high. We don't know how bad it is." Sam reminds them.

They drive as quietly as they can, Kyle directing Sam to their house. The streets are deserted, of people anyway, empty cars and debris litter the streets. Sam stops the car in front of their house, the front door is open.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Sam asks, feeling uneasy "We could just keep going, go back with Daryl now."

"No," Chris answers without hesitation "no, we have to go in. I have to know if they're ok."

Kyle looks at the house, the open door and starts to shake his head "Chris…"

"No!" she shoves him away, hard. "They have to be ok. I need them."

Chris dissolves into sobs, still staring at the house. Kyle tries to comfort her, but she pulls away. Daryl catches movement on the second floor, and prays that Chris didn't see it too.

"They're here!" Chris all but screams "In their room. The curtains moved, I saw it."

She bolts from the car before anyone else can talk her down, Kyle reaches for her and grasps empty air. Chris disappears in to the house yelling for her parents.

* * *

Daryl is the first out of the car and takes off after Chris. The others follow him into the dark house. Kyle pushes last him and heads straight up the stairs. They stop short in the doorway when they see Chris curled up on the bed, sobbing.

"It wasn't them." she admits to Kyle when he sits next to her "They're not here. The stupid hall window was open."

Kyle pulls her onto his lap "Shh, It's ok. Maybe they left, went somewhere else. We should see if they left us a note or something."

Chris nods and wipes her face. "We should get some of our stuff too."

"What's left of it." Daryl says from the doorway "Front door was busted open, looks like looters got at the place."

Sam gives him a sharp look, but he just shrugs, "Daryl and I will go check downstairs, look for notes or something. You guys grab whatever from your rooms, and meet us back at the front door in ten, ok?"

* * *

"So what was your plan after this place was a bust?" Daryl asks, leaning on the kitchen counter after he and Sam clear the bottom floor.

"Honestly, I have no clue. My mom and sister are back up in Boston, so probably work my way up there, try to find them." Sam chokes back a small sob when she thinks about her family "Stick to the highway, get back to them soon as I can."

"That still the plan?"

"I don't know. I don't know that it's worth it. I don't want to say it's hopeless, but…"

A scream from upstairs stops any further conversation. Sam rushes up the steps, taking them two at a time. Kyle yelling joins the screaming from the open door at the end of the hall. They burst into the room and see Kyle trying to pry one of the crazies off Chris, even as it continues to gnaw on her arm. Daryl shoves Sam aside and rips the thing off Chris and rams his knife through it's eye. Kyle collapses at his sisters side.

"Why did she" Chris stammers, clutching at her bleeding arm "Kyle, why did Mom do that?"

"That wasn't Mom," he chokes out "that was a monster wearing her face. She loved you, she would never hurt you."

Sam comes back into the room with towels and presses them to Chris' arm to try and slow the bleeding. Daryl helps her, grabbing a belt off the floor and securing the towels with it.

"That doesn't look good." he whispers to Sam "There's a big chunk missing from her arm."

"I know" Sam tries to hold back tears "it's not. The disease, whatever it is, it's transmitted through the bites, so even"

"Even if she doesn't bleed out, she'll turn." Daryl finishes, Sam nods, tears welling in her eyes.

Chris lies on the floor, the monster, once their mother, lies dead near the door where Daryl dropped her.

Kyle holds his sisters hand and brushes her hair back from her face.

Sam turns away, unable to hold back her tears "We have to tell him, we can't let her turn, become one of them."

Daryl nods "You go sit with the girl, I'll talk to Kyle."

Sam sits next to Chris, taking her hand from Kyle "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have let you come in here."

Sam can see the blood already soaking through the towels. Chris is ghostly pale, but she tries to make Sam feel better.

"You were just trying to help. Without you we would still be sitting in that stupid hotel, waiting for the Army to come." she tries to laugh, but her eyes start to lose focus, she doesn't have much longer.

"There's gotta be something we can do." Kyle pushes away from Daryl "I can't let her die! She's my baby sister! For Christ's sake"

"Man, I'm sorry, but the only think you can do now is sit with her until she goes and keep her from becoming one of those things."

"I can't. I just can't." tears start rolling down his cheeks,

"Kyle" Sam brings his attention back to his sister "come hold her hand. I don't think she'll be conscious for much longer."

Kyle drops to his knees and takes her hand from Sam "Chris, I'm so sorry. I should have protected you. I should have been there."

He sits so she can rest her head on his lap and he strokes her hair. Sam can hear him singing softly to her, the song from the car. She pulls Daryl out into the hall, just outside the door, giving him privacy.

_"Beyond the sunset, oh blissful morning_

_When with out savior, heaven is begun_

_Earths toiling end, oh glory dawning_

_Beyond the sunset when day is done_"

Sam covers her mouth to quiet her crying, but her body shakes with it. Daryl just stares at the wall in front of him, unsure of what to do.

_"I want to know each step you take, that I may walk the same_

_For someday down that lonely road, you'll hear me call your name_

_Should you go first and I remain, one thing I'll have you do_

_Walk slowly down that long, long path, for soon I'll follow you"_

Kyle is crying too hard to finish the last two lines of the song, and that's when Sam knows she's gone.

* * *

A/N The song Kyle sings is Beyond the Sunset-Hank Williams


	8. Chapter 8

A/N Sorry about that last chapter, it had to happen. This one's a little short, but I hope you enjoy! Please review.

* * *

Sam walks back into the room, Kyle is still holding his sisters hand. She tries to get Kyle up off the floor, but he won't move.

"Kyle, you have to move. We have to take care of her."

"No. You can't touch her." Kyle says through his tears.

"You don't want her to become one of those crazies, do you?" Sam gives Daryl a desperate look, begging for help.

Daryl tries to talk to Kyle, make him see that this needs to be done, but he keeps trying to go back to his sister. Sam looks at Chris, fighting tears again, she was so young. There must have been a way Sam could have kept them away from this. Sam looks at her more closely, thinking she saw her eyelids move, just a flutter. Her eyes twitch again, and the fingers on her injured arm grasp at her clothing. Sam scoots back, afraid to say anything in case it's a false alarm, but when her eyes open, she knows for sure. Her once dark eyes are cloudy and ringed with red. She starts to stir, but Sam's vocal chords are frozen.

* * *

Daryl is still arguing with Kyle when he sees movement in the room, Sam is pressed against the bed, eyes locked on the girl on the floor. Her eyes are open again, and she is slowly trying to move. He raises his bow, trained on her head, but Kyle pushes past him and goes to his knees at his sisters side again. Her movements get more frantic as she tries to get at him. Daryl raises the bow again and takes the shot while he can.

Chris' arms fall limply at her side and her head drops back to the floor. Sam stares at Daryl, her mouth open as Kyle gets to his feet.

"What have you done?" his voice is low and menacing "What have you done! You killed her!"

Kyle lunges at Daryl, his hands trying to get a grip on his throat. Daryl is able to keep him off. "That wasn't your sister. Did you see her? She would have taken a chunk our of you too if I didn't do something."

Kyle is still fighting, swinging his fists wildly at Daryl's head. Daryl shoves him hard, Kyle loses his balance and lands on his backside next to Chris' corpse. All the fight seems to leave him in a rush. He goes back to holding her hand.

Sam tries to approach him "Kyle, we should get going, it's getting late. It's not safe to be out after dark anymore."

"Then go." his voice is flat, empty "I'm not keeping you here."

"You can't honestly think we're going to leave you here. Come with us." Sam tries to touch his shoulder but he jerks away.

"Don't touch me. She would still be alive if it weren't for you." he gives Sam a look so sharp she actually takes a step back "Just go away."

Sam's heart breaks a little when Daryl starts to lead her out of the room and down the stairs. He puts her in the car and gets in on the drivers side.

* * *

Daryl doesn't like the fact that he had to shoot the girl in front of her brother, he wishes he didn't have to, but none of them could do it. As it is, she almost took her brother with her.

"I had to." he says out loud, Sam nods but keeps staring out the window. "I kinda liked the kid, she had fire. I wish it had gone down differently."

Sam is quiet for a long time, letting the tears slide down her face as she watches the sunset. "Thank you," she finally says "I couldn't have done it.

"I know," Daryl lifts hand off the console, but he just lets it hover there, unsure what to do with it. After a few seconds he puts it down again.

"Your plan still Boston?"

"I don't know," she wipes her face and turns to him "I don't want to go anywhere tonight, but … do you think, maybe I could. If you and your brother don't mind? Can I just stay with you guys tonight? Until I can get some gas or something in the morning?'

"Yeah, course it is." he says as they near the town where they met up. "Shit, shit, shit. We gotta make a quick stop before we go back."

They pull up to where Daryl and Merle made their camp. There is a roaring fire, but Merle is no where in it's light. Daryl gets out of the truck and grabs the bags.

"You wait here. I'll find him and let him know we've got company." he says to Sam before shutting the door. "Merle! Where are you brother? I'm back."

"Bout time, " Merle walks into the firelight "I was startin to wonder. Thinking maybe you got lost.  
"Naw, ran into some trouble is all." he hands Merle the bag of booze "s'all I could grab, and a few more boxes for your rifle. And, uh, we got company."

"Are you shitting me? How many times I gotta tell you, it's just you and me. We don't need anyone else."

"She just needs somewhere to crash tonight. "Daryl explains, exasperated "I don't think she'll stick around after tonight."

Merle stands, waiting "Well?"

Daryl motions Sam out of the truck, she steps out and slings her pack over her shoulder before walking towards them.

"Where should I put this? she asks Daryl.

Merle lets out a bark of laughter when he sees her "Well, hey there. You're wasting your time though baby brother. She don't like us big strong men. Does she?"

Sam's face turns a dark red in the fore light "I never said that."

"Oh, is that true now?" Merle starts swaggering over to her. "What if I said I didn't believe you?"

"Come on man, leave her be. She's been through hell already." Daryl moves in front of Sam just a little.

"Forget it." Sam says, turning back to the path they drove up "I don't need this right now. Thanks for today though, Daryl."


	9. Chapter 9

A/N Sorry for the lastness. Crazy day. But finally fun parts, Sam and the Dixons. Enjoy! Much love to all my followers 3 (pppssst don't forget to review)

* * *

"Now hold on a minute" Merle says after her "little thing like you can't go off in the woods all alone."

Sam glares at him, too exhausted to argue anymore "So where am I sleeping?"

Merle starts to open his mouth, but a renewed glare from her and whatever he was going to say turns into a smile instead. Daryl looks at their camp and her sleeping options. The shabby tent with a few threadbare blankets, the truck, or the ground. None of which seem appealing.

"I really don't care. Point me in a direction and I'll sleep." she sighs when they continue to stare at each other "Fine. I'll sleep in the truck."

She climbs back in the cab and curls up on the seat, letting the tears run freely until she falls asleep.

Sam wakes with a start, glad to be out of the nightmare she was having. Kyle and Chris haunt her dreams now. She scrubs her face on the sleeve of her jacket and is about to open the truck door when voices stop her.

"She ain't hurtin nobody. She's got nowhere to go." Daryl argues with Merle.

"What happened to our plan? She'll just bring us down." Merle is starting to get angry "I thought you weren't gonna question me anymore."

"She's gotten this far on her own, she can take care of herself. Maybe she can help us."

"Exactly, right there. She can take care of herself. She don't need us anymore than we need her" Merle throws Daryl's reasoning back in his face "Why you wanna keep her around anyway?"

"I dunno" Daryl stammers "she might be useful." he shrugs, unable to put it into words why he feels the need to keep her around.

The truck door creaks as it's opened. Sam slides out and stretches. She tries to straighten out her wrinkled shirt, but gives up after a minute and instead takes a seat by the fire. Daryl sits down near her, turning the spitted squirrel.

"I don't have to stick around now. It's light, I can get gas and leave." Sam says, not exactly looking at him. Daryl shrugs, not looking at her either.

"Why don't you hang around for a while," Merle says from his guard post on the truck "Maybe we could use you around here."

Daryl's face darkens, if Sam hadn't heard the conversation the brothers had a few minutes ago, she would probably think Merle is making a genuine offer, but she can see by the way he smirks at Daryl's reaction, he is only doing it to get under his skin.

"You guys seem to be doing alright" she says, trying to distract Daryl from his brooding.

"We're ok" he says, only glancing up from the cooking meat, "We can take care of ourselves. Always had to."

"Seems you got the hunting part down." she smiles at him as he takes the finished squirrel off the fire "That's more than I could do. Back at he hotel we were living off canned food and whatever hadn't gone bad yet."

Daryl notices her flinch slightly when she talks about the hotel, then she gets really quiet. He tries to keep her mind off it. "Got anything in that bag we can eat with this guy?"

Sam laughs as Daryl waves around the spitted squirrel, "I have no clue. What do you eat squirrel with?"

"Same stuff you eat with rabbits." Sam just raises an eyebrow "Lemme see what you got."

The sun starts sinking to late afternoon, Sam offers to replenish their firewood supply, Daryl goes with her, as a look out. When they are out of earshot of the camp Sam turns to Daryl.

"Have you seen many of those crazies around here? This far out in the woods?"

"The eaters? Only when Merle fires off rounds like a jackass." Daryl replies with a small smile.

"I heard you guys talking this morning." her abrupt change in subject causes his face to harden again.

"So? What bout it?" he asks harshly.

"I know it wasn't Merle that wanted me to stay. No matter what he said to me." she puts her free hand on his shoulder, "Thanks."

He jerks away, spilling a few sticks from his bundle "Whatever. Don't mean nuthin."

He stays a few feet behind her for the rest of their trip, shooting down any attempts at conversation. When they get back to the camp, the air is still tense between them, Sam doesn't risk trying to break it and make things worse. Merle is still perched on the truck, gun at his side and bottle in his hand. Before she can think twice about it, she walks up and snatches the bottle from him.  
Merle reaches for his gun before he can stop himself. "The hell you think yer doin Missy? You Can't just go round stealin a mans drink."

"You know what?" she replies, taking a big drink "My world's gone to hell lately. I think I'm a little entitled."

Merle raises an eyebrow and with a chuckle looks at Daryl "Whadaya say little brother? Loosen up and enjoy a little?"

"Somebodys gotta keep watch." Daryl says, monotone, while stacking their wood pile.

"I thought you said they didn't come this far out?" Sam taunts slightly.

"Yeah, well" Daryl starts.

"Oh give it a rest will you Darylina? We can all fit up here," Merle pats the roof of the truck "nice and cozy like, high up."

Sam hauls herself up, but stays as far away from as Merle as she can and whines at Daryl "Come on Daryl, don't leave me all alone with him."

He begrudgingly joins them on the roof and takes a big drink from the bottle Sam offers.

The bottle is dangerously low before any of them start to relax. Sam dangles her feet over the edge of the truck and looks off into the dark woods. There is a rustling here and there, but none of them are concerned nobody has seen any trace of an eater for days. Merle jumps down from the truck and heads towards the woods. Sam takes advantage of the open space and lays back on the roof. Daryl is staring into the woods on the other side.

"Your brother's a piece of work. Isn't he?" Sam asks, looking at Daryl, he shrugs and nods.

Sam feels someone tugging on her ankle "Let go, asshole."

She shakes her foot, trying to shake loose of Merle's grip and it connects with the solidness of his chest. She sits up to apologize and comes face to face with the hungry eyes and grasping hands of an eater. Sam scrambles back onto the roof, keeping out of reach. Daryl grabs for his bow, but it is just out of his grasp in the bed of the truck. Sam gives it a hard kick that stumbles it back a few feet. Daryl is aiming his bow as Merle runs up behind the eater and drives his knife down through it's skull. Sam gathers her wits and turns her attention to the small group of eaters walking from the woods into the clearing.

Sam's breath hitches when she sees the kids emerging from the tree line. A boy and a girl, neither is over ten. Despite their mutilated forms, they come at the group just as fast as the others.

Daryl aims at the boy, takes him down first and reloads to take out the girl. Merle is grappling with one of the older ones, making wild slashes at it, laughing as he does, not making any attempt to kill it. Mocking it instead. Sam takes out the other one with little trouble, but still can't seem to get over seeing the kids. The girl is the only one left, she' at the truck now, small hands clawing to get at him. He sends the bolt straight through her eye and she slumps to the side of the truck. For a minute the only sound is the crackling fire.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N So you guys get a really early update this week. And I promise Sam isn't always such a cry baby, she's just going through some stuff now. Thanks for sticking with me so far. Hope you guys like it!

* * *

Sam turns to Merle "Um, thanks. That one really caught me off guard."

"Who woulda thought you could have so much fun at the end of the world." Merle kicks the dead hand that one of his slashes dismembered.

Daryl rolls his eyes at his brother's callous remarks, then remembers that Merle probably hasn't been in his right mind since they got back, dipping into his stash pretty frequently.

Sam stares at the corpses of the kids, still shaken. "I know everyone that gets bit changes, but for some reason, I didn't think about kids. I mean, I couldn't imagine it," she shakes her head and stuffs the feelings down "I'm going to bed, and I'm sleeping in the truck again."

* * *

Daryl and Merle sit across from each other, staring at the dieing fire.

"Might not be so bad, having her around an all. She's decent backup." Merle says, kicking the remainder of a log into the fire, causing a burst of embers.

Daryl's mood improves slightly when he goes on watch knowing that now Merle won't try to get rid of Sam, not actively at least.

* * *

Sam wakes with a start and holds in a scream when there is a tapping on the truck window, but after squinting into the darkness for a second, she realizes it's just Daryl, waking her for her turn at watch.

Sam takes her spot at the base of the tree closest to the embers of the fire. She picks up a decent size stick and starts stripping off the bark with her hatchet and sharpening the end to a point. Without anything to truly occupy her mind, the full force of everything hits her. She is overwhelmed with grief for all those she's lost, even those she can't be sure about.. She finally lets herself grieve.

Mom and Cally

Andy

Kyle and Chris

Who knows that happened to all her other friends back home. She feels a sharp pang of loneliness and realizes that, for all she knows, Daryl and Merle are the only living people she knows in the world. She stares into the embers and lets the tears flow, trying to keep quiet so she can hear the woods, but after a while, it's hard to quiet her sniffling. The heat from the embers has dried the tear tracks on her face into tight streaks. The snap of a branch makes her jump and she whips around.

* * *

Daryl approaches her, unsure what to make of the tear streaked face and puffy eyes. He sits down a few feet from her.

"I'm sorry" she roughly wiper her face "I didn't mean to wake you up. I was trying to be quiet."

"S'alright. Wasn't really sleepin anyway." he stares at the fire, trying awkwardly to avoid looking at her tear stained face..

Sam wait's a long time to see if he is going to say more, ask what is upsetting her. But he doesn't, his mouth opens every now and then, but he stays quiet.

"I've been trying not to think about how all the people I used to know are probably dead. But now I don't have anything to distract me. I couldn't help it." she cries into her arm, hiding her face.

"I don't really got anyone left either." Daryl tries to sympathize "But I never had anyone anyway. Sides Merle. So I guess this ain't all that different."

Sam moves over so she can hide her face in his shoulder, and mumbles into the soft leather of his vest "This is all so awful. Do you think there are still other people alive out there?"

"There's gotta be." he says.

Sam takes a deep breath to hold back the rising hysteria. The musky smell of leather and sweat helps calm her down. Soon her breathing evens out and she drifts into sleep.

Daryl sits rigid against the tree, Sam's head on his shoulder, completely clueless about what to do. This is all so new to him. Nobody has turned to him for comfort since he was little, before his mom died. He slowly, so he doesn't wake her up, moves his arm around her shoulders. She seems so small now, far from the fighter he saw a few hours ago. He sits, searching the woods, listening to her calm breathing and the quiet night.

* * *

Sam begins to wake up, and her muscles instantly protest, she can feel the hard ground and the rough tree bark at her back. Daryl's arm is still around her shoulders, but he moves it when he realizes she is awake.

"You fell asleep. Didn't want you fallin on your face." Daryl looks away quickly, his cheeks reddening slightly under the layer of grime on his face. He runs his fingers through his hair.

"You shouldn't have let me fall asleep. I was supposed to be on watch." Sam looks at the patches of lightening sky "You must be exhausted."

Daryl just shrugs as he gets to his feet "You can just take first watch tonight."

Sam sits and starts throwing wood on the embers and gathering food up to make breakfast.

Merle comes out of the tent as Sam is finishing the food "Now this is that I should see every morning. A woman by the fire with my food ready."

Sam throws a handful of dirt in his general direction "You know, you're a pig. Who said any of this is for you anyway?"

Daryl smiles a little while Sam gives Merle a hard time, knowing it pisses him off to no end.

* * *

"I think we should move." Sam says, out of nowhere, after breakfast is cleaned up. "Last night freaked me out. What if there are more nest time? What if a whole town decides to move on, instead of just one family?"

"Oh come on, last night was nothing." Merle brags "I coulda taken em all on my own."

"I don't know that I would want that many around me. Especially with no one to watch my back," Sam argues "that can get bad fast."

Daryl nods in agreement "Back when we were leaving the house the first time, member how fast they swarmed? There's only gonna be more now. "

"We need to get more supplies soon anyway. It will be easier to scavenge if we're already moving. We can't live off rabbits and squirrels forever." Sam persists, seeing Merle start to crack.

"Where do you suggest we go?" he finally gives in.

"South?" Sam suggests "They were telling people to evacuate to Atlanta, which I know was a bad idea, but maybe there are other people we can share supplies with. I mean, they couldn't let everyone in the city, right?"

Daryl waits to see how fast Merle will shoot down the idea of joining with another group and is completely shocked when he agrees. That is until he realizes what he is actually thinking.

"Maybe a group is the way to go. More people, more supplies, gas. She may be on to something." Merle throws a wink in his brothers direction, reminding him of their earlier plan to take whatever they can from any group they find that is stupid enough to trust them. Clearly Sam is not supposed to know this, the whole plan relies on trust after all. Getting in for a while and robbing them blind.

Merle straddles his bike "Come on, we're burning daylight here."

Sam kicks enough dirt on the fire to make sure it goes out, gets in the truck next to Daryl, and they follow Merle out of the woods


	11. Chapter 11

A/N Thanks for sticking with me guys! I'm glad you still like the story.

* * *

A few more days of camping, hunting and scavenging roll by before they find anyone else. Keeping to back roads and side streets made it take days instead of hours. They follow a dust trail up into a small set of hills and find a somewhat large camp. People are gathering around the jeep that must have left the trail.

Daryl parks the truck away from the rest of the vehicles. Merle pulls up next to him and by the time they shut off the engines almost everyone in the group has stopped what they are doing to stare at the newcomers.

Daryl turns to Sam "You should introduce us first."

Sam states at him "Why me?"

"Cuz you're the least threatening of us."

Sam sighs and slowly gets out of the truck. A tall man, built like a football player comes to the front of the group, casually holding an automatic shotgun,

"Hey." Sam says simply "Is there room for a few more?"

"That depends," he says, resting the gun on his shoulder "anyone been bit? Scratched?"

"Nope, we're all clear. I'm Samantha." she steps forward "The guy on the bike is Merle Dixon, the one in the truck is his brother Daryl."

The man shakes her extended hand "Shane. How'd you find this? We're pretty far from the highway."

"We didn't take the highway" Sam explains while Merle and Daryl come up to join her "And your jeep leaves a pretty big dust trail."

"Let me show you where you can set up, then we can do introductions." Shane says, signaling everyone to get back to what they were doing.

* * *

The camp consists of almost thirty people, mostly families, but there are some who are alone. They end up setting up their camp near the edge of the group, close to the woods. Shane does introductions as promised while everyone is gathered, preparing dinner.

Lori, who's husband died at the beginning of all this, and her son Carl. Amy and Andrea, sisters on a road trip from Florida. Ed and Carol Peletier and their daughter Sophia, and a handful of others.

"Glen should be back from Atlanta soon," Shane says "so you'll be able to meet him then."

"Wait, Atlanta?" Sam is shocked "That can't be safe. The city must be so far gone by now."

"It's an absolute disaster. Completely over run." Amy, the younger of the sisters confirms her suspicions.

"Glen is our runner. He goes in when we need supplies, he's good, he can get in and out of the city on foot in just a few hours." Shane reassures her "Why don't you see if they need any help with the food. I'm sure there's something for the guys to do too."

Sam walks over to the group of women around the big central fire pit "Is there anything I can do?"

"We can always use more hands." Lori, the dark haired woman with the son and dead husband says, giving Sam a short list of things to do.

* * *

Daryl searches for Sam, distracted from what he is supposed to be doing. Merle should be helping set up the camp, but he is nowhere to be seen. He manages on his own though, having learned a long time ago not to depend on Merle for anything.

* * *

Sam rotates some of the cans heating over the fire, "So you guys were headed to the city?"

"Yeah. It was awful. The highway is so clogged with cars." Amy says "We couldn't even get close. Which I guess was a good thing. Considering what happened."

Sam looks confused until Lori offers an explanation quietly "They fire bombed the city, dropped napalm in the streets, a few days ago."

"Was it just to kill the eaters? Or were they killing live people too?" Sam asks horrified.

"We were too far away to tell, but I like to think the streets they bombed were full of the walkers, but there's no way they could have made sure there were no living people down there."

The sun starts sinking lower, and Glen finally returns with new supplies. The lanky boy receives many pats on the back while he unloads some of the most needed supplies.

"We have new people." Glen states the obvious when he sees Sam.

"Yeah, three more people." Amy explains excitedly "This is Sam, and the Dixons, over there, Merle and Daryl."

Sam can see the wariness in Glens face as he observes the guys.

"I know they look like rednecks," Sam defends "but they're good guys. Just a little rough around the edges."

Glen glances between Sam and the guys skeptically before walking away.

* * *

Daryl starts walking over to where Sam is sitting, even though there's no sign of the eaters around he doesn't trust any of those new people to keep her safe.

"Hey Daryl," Sam says, seeing him approaching "the food's just about done. This group seems pretty well off. What do you think?"

"They're fine, I guess." he sits near her, but not too close.

"You don't really like people, do you?" Sam asks, making him fidget a little.

"Not really. 'S always been just me, or me an Merle. We look out for our own. An it's easier if we keep it that way."

"You wanted me to stay. So I'm betting that mentality is all Merle."

"Well, I knew you from before. The bar," Daryl struggles to find a nice way to say 'I didn't want your face getting ripped off' but what comes out is "I didn't have to go out of my way to save yer ass, but I did."

* * *

Sam watches in confusion as Daryl stalks off to his truck and slams the door. She can feel at least a few pairs of eyes staring at her.

"What was that all about?" Amy asks, coming over to Sam.

"I honestly have no clue. We were just talking, then he got mad and stormed off." Sam sighs "He seemed fine when he came over here."

"And they say we're the confusing ones." Amy says with a laugh.

* * *

Daryl sits in his truck, trying not to chain smoke the rest of the cigarettes he has left, forcing himself to calm down and smoke slowly. Sam opens the passenger door and gets in the truck with him.

"You know Dixon, you confuse the hell out of me" she reaches over and grabs the cigarette before he can bring it to his lips again, and takes a drag "I expect one thing, and you do the compete opposite. Merle might be a dick, but at least he's consistent."

Sam takes one last drag and gives him the cigarette before closing the truck door.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N Much love to you guys! Thanks for reading, I love hearing from you. Enjoy. Sorry for the shortness of this chapter, I promise I'll make it up with the next one.

* * *

Sam wakes to the bustle in the camp while everyone starts the day. She sits by the fire, trying to work out some of the knots in her back.

"It gets cold here at night" a woman with a Hispanic accent says "We should have some extra blankets somewhere. But the cold is why your shoulders hurt, shivering and trying to stay warm."

"Miranda, right?" Sam asks, she nods "That would be wonderful. Are you sure your family doesn't need them?"

"Yes, we have more than enough." she heads back to her car to get the blankets.

Sam ducks into the tent with the armful of blankets. Merle drops a small vial in one of the pockets on his vest and wipes his hands on his pants.

She drops the blankets on the floor "Look what Miranda Morales gave us. Her and he family had some extra."

Merle kicks off the corner of the blanket that landed on his shoe "You expectin me to take charity from some beaner? Get this shit out of here."

"No." Sam refuses "She gave them to me, and I intend to use them. I wasn't asking your permission, and I don't need your opinion."

Merle stands and gets right in front of her.

"Merle you better get the hell out of my face, right now."

"Or what?" Merle taunts.

* * *

Daryl can hear the argument from the edge of the woods and he hauls ass to the tent. Sam and Merle are nose to nose, shouting at each other.

"Get the fuck away from me." Sam shoves Merle hard and he stumbles back a few steps.

Daryl manages to catch his infuriated brother by the back of his shirt before he can charge at Sam.

"Take a walk Merle." Daryl all but shoves him outside "Go cool off."

"Why you protecting that bitch? Huh? I'm your brother, flesh an blood. She's expectin us to take handouts from some damn beaner." Merle struggles against Daryl's hold on his shirt.

"I'll take care of it Merle, go get some water or something." Daryl is finally able to let go of his brothers clothes when he starts walking away. He turns to Sam "What the hell was that? He woulda busted your face if I hadn't stopped him."

Sam, still on the defensive, fires back "I would have been fine. I can handle myself against one fucking backwoods racist redneck."

"You crazy?" Daryl stares at her "He's got least a hundred pounds on you. And military training."

"Ok, fine. So maybe he would have kicked my ass if you hadn't come by." Sam says, completely honest "But I would have gotten a few good punches in."

Daryl shakes his head at her inability to admit defeat, "Over what?"

"Miranda gave me some extra blankets, I got cold last night." Sam arranges some of the blankets in her sleeping area "I know he doesn't want any, but what about you?"

"Nah, I'm good." he shakes his head, but helps her fold the rest of the blankets.

"Were you out hunting again?" Sam asks, folding the last blanket.

"Somethin like that." he says "Wasn't really out there long enough to get anything."

"You seem at home in the woods. I always wanted to go hunting, but it's a little harder in the city." Sam says, genuinely interested "Do you think next time you go out I can come too? Maybe you can teach me."

Daryl glances away "Yeah, I'll get you next time I go."

"Cool. Thanks." she smiles

* * *

Sam smiles to herself the rest of the day, looking forward to the future hunting trip. She decided to avoid Merle as much as she can. As the sun sinks, Merle comes down and is tolerable to be around again. Even a little nice. When Glen asks for volunteers to go to Atlanta in the morning for a big run, Merle actually wants to go.

"Might as well be useful while I'm here." he reasons when Daryl questions it "See what the city's like an all."

Sam is still wary "You know, you're going to have to listen to Glen. He's done this before, knows how it works.:

"Yeah, yeah." Merle brushes her off while he walks over to Andrea, who also volunteered "Hey there Blondie, looks like we're gonna be a team."

Andrea rolls her eyes in disgust "I'm not letting you watch my back. No way."

"Well how 'bout I watch your front? I'd be ok with that too." Merle laughs as Andrea walks away "She just don't see the charm. Can't handle a real man."

Sam is worries as she looks the group over while Glen explains their plan. Glen, Andrea, T-Dog, Jaqui, Morales and Merle. That's just a recipe for disaster. But Merle seems to really want to go, so Sam keeps her mouth shut.

Daryl walks back over to Sam after a short conversation with Shane "We're goin huntin tomorrow, try an bag something for dinner. We'll head out round the same time as the other group. Probably spend the night out in the woods. So be ready."

"Ok." Sam says, containing her excitement.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Thank you guys for your continued support. I love that I keep getting new readers too! You get an early post this week, because I dont know when I'll be able to post later. Hope you like it! Much loves 3

* * *

The sunlight is just starting to filter through the leaves when Sam and Daryl find their first target. Daryl has already shown her how to use the bow and made her practice a few times. He quietly hands the bow over to her, loaded and ready to fire.

Sam keeps her eyes on the squirrel, fat little thing rummaging around on the forest floor, not paying any attention to them. Sam fires the bow, but misses by a few inches, lodging the bolt in the dirt and causing the squirrel to dart away and up a nearby tree.

"Damn it!" Sam exclaims, shoulders slumping with disappointment.

"That wasn't bad." Daryl reassures her, taking the bow to reload it.

"Not bad? I missed by a mile." Sam retrieves the bolt from the dirt.

"That was a smaller target than you practiced on, and alive. You only missed by a few inches. You did good." Daryl cleans off the bolt and loads it again "Give it another try."

The squirrel is still in the tree, chattering away angrily at them.

"Focus and breathe out when you shoot. Keeps your aim steady." he advises when she aims again.

The squirrel tries to leap away at the last second, and the bolt ends up hitting it in the side, knocking it to the ground, there it lays, twitching for a heartbeat before going still.

"Yes!" Sam exclaims "I got it! Did you see that?"

Daryl attaches the squirrel to the rope across his body, "Good job, not a bad shot."

"I can't believe I got something. My first time out too." Sam chatters excitedly, she beams at him "I guess I just have an awesome teacher."

Daryl blushes and shrugs "Probably just lucky."

Sam rolls her eyes slightly "So what now?"

"We find some more game an do it again." he searches the trees for more animals.

"Think there's anything bigger than squirrels in these woods?" Sam asks, following closely behind him.

"There's some deer round here, tracks over there." he points to a bare patch of ground.

"How can you tell? All I see is dirt." Sam stares at the ground with a puzzled look on her face.

He shows her the outline of the prints in the soft ground. "See the way the leaves are scattered? We wanna go that way."

They follow the tracks deeper into the woods, or more accurately Daryl follows the tracks, Sam follows Daryl, taking turns shooting at any poor squirrel that crosses their path. Daryl signals for her to stop and raises the bow, taking aim at the doe a few yards away between the trees. The bolt sinks deep into the deer's side, wounding it as it runs away.

"Damn." Daryl mutters under his breath "Now we gotta follow it an wait for it to die."

"Can we sit for a minute?" Sam asks, not used to hours in such a rough terrain "Maybe find some more water?"

"Yeah, but we can't wait too long. Don't want her to get too far ahead of us." Daryl leads them back to a nearby stream.

Sam sits on a sun warmed rock by the edge of the water and starts splashing handfuls of the cool water onto her face and arms.

* * *

Daryl watches Sam out of the corner of his eye, cooling off the back of his neck with the water. The humid summer air makes her tank top cling to her body, the dappled light plays against her face. He licks his lips and turns away.

"Let's go."

Sam stands and brushes the debris off her pants. "Lead the way."

* * *

They follow the trail deeper into the woods for hours before they can't see the trail in the dark and decide to camp for the night. When the sun rises they follow the trail again, which circles through miles of woods, back towards the camp. They hike up the final hill and see some of their group, most of the Atlanta group, and a new comer, circled around the deer and the decapitated body of an eater, the deer's neck all chewed on.

"Filthy, disease bearing, motherless, proxy bastard!" Daryl punctuates each word with a kick to the body. He continues complaining about the deer while he walks back to the main camp "Merle! Get yer ass put here, got some squirrels for us up cook up."

The next few minutes are a blur when the new guy, Rick Grimes, breaks the news to Daryl that they left his brother hand cuffed to a roof in Atlanta. Daryl looses it, pulling his hunting knife and swinging at anyone that gets in range. He ends up in a choke hold from Shane, while Rick, Lori's "dead" husband , tries to calm him down.

"I'm goin back for him." Daryl tells Sam "He's my brother. I gotta go get him."

"I'm going with you." Sam says. He looks at her, considering it for a second, then nods.

"Lets get going. Tell me where he is so's I can go get im." he demands of Rick.

* * *

They head back to the city, piled in the back of the furniture truck, Daryl, Sam, Rick, Glen and T-Dog. Daryl keeps shooting nasty looks at T-Dog between checking, rechecking and cleaning his weapons.

"He better be ok." Daryl says as they draw closer to the city.

Sam lays a reassuring hand on his forearm "I'm sure he'll be fine. He's one tough bastard, you know that."

"We walk from here." Glen says, parking the truck.

Glen leads them back to the department store from the day before. Most of the geeks have cleared out, just one or two left in the store, which Daryl quickly dispatches. They cut the padlock off the chain and Daryl is first through the door, frantically searching the roof for Merle, Sam follows close behind.

* * *

Daryl rounds the last set of pipes, still searching for any signs of his brother. What he sees causes him to lose any composure he has left. He turns away and looks back a few times before his brain can fully process the images it's taking in, the empty handcuffs, the puddle of blood, the saw and the severed hand laying on the ground.

"No!" he shouts, turning away, grabbing his hair with one hand "No! No!"

* * *

Sam walks to where Daryl is, and her hands fly to her mouth to keep in a scream, or to keep from throwing up, she doesn't know which. The sight of the pale hand, palm up, almost makes her lose it, but she breathes in deep, trying to ignore the faint smell of blood. Daryl is still pacing back and forth, yelling. She leans against one of the large pipes, bracing her hands on her knees. That's when she sees the definitive blood trail leading away from them.

"Daryl, look" she points it out to him. He lowers his bow from T-dog's face.

"Looks like he got off the roof." Daryl is completely focused on the trail. He borrows a bandana from T-dog and wraps up the hand, sticking it in the pack.

* * *

They follow the trail through an office, admiring the two geeks Merle was able to take out, one handed.

"Toughest asshole I ever met, my brother. Feed him a hammer, he'd crap out nails." Daryl replies to a comment from Rick about Merle not making it far.

The trail ends in a kitchen with a handful of Bunsen burners are still going , Merle's belt on the counter and an overturned metal press.

"What's all that black stuff?" Glen asks as Rick inspects the press.

"Burnt skin." Rick replies "He must have cauterized the wound."

"Looks like he took off." Daryl points out a broken window .

"Why would he risk going into the city?" Glen asks, shocked.

"He's on his own, far as he knows." Daryl says, anger clear in his voice.

"I'm sorry Daryl, I really hoped we would find him." Sam says.

"We can search some of the surrounding blocks, but we need that bag of guns." Rick offers.

* * *

Everyone agrees with that. Glen lays out a plan, as usual, he'll go for the bag, covered from the back by Daryl and Sam, and the front a few blocks away by Rick and T-dog. Sam peers out from behind the dumpster, watching as Glen hops over the barrier.

There is a scuff of a boot behind him and Daryl turns around, bow raised. The kid, scared looking teenager in baggy jeans and a dirty tank top, sees the bow and starts yelling.

"I'm looking for my brother, he's hurt real bad. You seen him?" Daryl asks, the kid just keeps yelling.

* * *

Sam hears the yelling and turns around, Daryl has a kid on the ground, trying to cover his mouth, but the kid keeps pulling his hand away and calling for someone. The chain link fence rattles behind her and two big guys run down the alley, kick Daryl off the kid and keep attacking him. She tries to pull one of them away, but he shoves her back. The fence rattles again and she turns the same time the guys do.

"Glen!" she yells.

"That's the bag! Get it!" one of the guys yells, the other runs for Glen.

Sam gets in his way so Glen can back peddle out of the alley.

Daryl aims his bow and fires a bolt at one of the guys just as a car pulls up to the mouth of the alley. The other one, the he didn't shoot grabs Sam and throws her in the car.

"Daryl!" she screams before they slam the door.

* * *

"Sam!" he tries to get to the car, but the driver peels out before he can get there.

Glen slips back inside the fence, pulling it closed behind him, keeping out the encroaching geeks. Rick and T-dog come running up the other end.

"What happened?" Rick looks from Daryl and Glen to the kid, still on the ground.

"They got Sam. This punk and his homie friends jumped me, then took Sam." Daryl goes after the kid again, barely held back in time by Rick.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N Hey everyone! I know some of the dialogue might not be exact, but I really don't want to have to watch each episode as I write the chapter, I hope you understand. Any scenes right from the show are going to be like that, but I'll try my best. Hope you guys like it, things start to get really good now (at least I think so).

* * *

When the car stops, Sam is jerked roughly out. She struggles as they bind her hands behind her back, place tape over her mouth and a black bag over her head. The air cools around her as they lead her along, and she can tell she's being taken inside. They take the bag off her head and her eyes try to adjust to the dim light in the building. There is a group of men in front of her is almost all Hispanic. The man in front of the group is the first to speak.

"What is this? Where are the guns? And who is she?"

"Her group attacked us. Crazy puto shot me in the ass. They have the guns, and Miguel." the guy on her right says.

"Take that tape off her mouth, Felipe." he turns to the group of men behind him "I got this."

Felipe takes the tape off her mouth, she takes a step away from all of them.

"You better let me go. The rest of my group will come for me, and you'll all end up dead." she says, staring right at the 'leader'.

* * *

"They took Sam, they could have taken Merle." Daryl says, infuriated at the idea that these thugs could possess the two people in the world that he cares about.

"Merle? What kind of hick name is Merle?" the kid laughs "I wouldn't name my dog Merle."

Daryl lashes out with his boot "Want me to kick your teeth down your fuckin throat?"

Rick holds Daryl back and tries to get information from the kid. Unsuccessfully. Daryl tries a different approach.

"Wanna see what happened to the last guy that pissed me off?" Daryl grabs the bandana from the pack and drops Merle's severed hand onto the kids lap.

As soon as he realizes what is in his lap he can't stand up fast enough and almost knocks over the chair. Daryl is on him in a second, pinning him against the wall

"We'll start with the feet this time."

* * *

"Hey now, neither of us wants it to come to that. I'm Guillermo. Please come with me." the man turns and walks farther into the building.

"I'm Sam. You gonna untie my hands or what?" Sam asks, following him.

"Unfortunately I'll have to keep you until I get what I want." he stops at an open door and she is shoved inside by Felipe " Nothing personal."

The room is fortified, preventing an easy escape. Crude bars on the windows and brick walls. She sits on the bare cot, trying to figure out the best way to get her bound hands in front of her, ease the ache in her shoulders. She lies down and tries to slide her bound hands down and over her legs, but the zip ties are tight and just end up cutting the sides of her wrists and hands.

"Maybe if my butt weren't so damn big." she sighs and scoots back so she can lean against the wall "I hope they get here soon."

* * *

T-dog is positioned in the roof of one of the neighboring buildings, gun trained on the doorway. Rick leads, the kid behind him with Daryl's bow at his back. Glen brings up the rear, watching for an attack.

"Where's my bag of guns? The bag on the street, that Felipe and Jorge went back to get." Guillermo asks Rick, his group, guns drawn, at his back.

"You're wrong." Rick says.

"I know the bag was there."

"About it being yours. That' my bag of guns." Rick corrects.

"Why should I believe you? Anyone could come along and say it's theirs."

Daryl moves from foot to foot, getting impatient with Rick's diplomatic approach. Needing to know of they have Merle, and if Sam is alright.

"You got my brother in there?"

"Nah, we're fresh outta white boys, but we got us a pretty little girl. What's she to you?"

"She's a member of out group. We have one of yours, so I propose a trade. One of ours for one of yours."

* * *

Sam is led up a narrow set of stairs, the bag back on her head and tape over her mouth, with only her muffled hearing to rely on, she doesn't struggle, not wanting to get hurt. Someone opens a door in front of her and the wind starts tugging at the bag on her head. She can hear voices being carried up to her.

"Miguel, you alright?" Guillermo asks.

Miguel, must be the kid from the alley, speaks "G, these guys are crazy. Thus redneck wanted to cut off my feet, he cut off some other guys hand, he showed it to me."

Sam smiles under the tape, knowing he is talking about Daryl. Someone shoves her and she is being led forward again. They pull the bag off her head and the height is dizzying for a moment. She looks down and sees Rick, Daryl and Glen in the courtyard.

"I need compensation for my guys pain and suffering. Felipe got shot in the ass, you want to cut off Miguel's feet. Either you come back with my bag of guns, or you come back locked and loaded." Guillermo says and turns to go back inside.

Sam stares with desperation at Daryl, begging him to get her out of this.

* * *

Daryl can see the fear in Sam's face, one of the few times he's ever seen her scared, in all that they've been through. He gives her a small nod, hoping she can see it from up there and follows Rick out of the courtyard.

"This is stupid. Just do what G says." Miguel begs from his crouched position on the floor.

"Are you part of this?" Daryl smacks him upside the head, almost no patience with this kid now.

"So we're just gonna hand over the guns?" T-dog asks.

"I didn't say that." Rick says, loading rounds into a shotgun.

* * *

"Can you please let me go? Just untie my hands? Please?" Sam asks Guillermo when he comes to talk to her "You and Rick sees like sensible guys, plus, I have no idea there to go, even if I did get out."

"That's what I was coming to do." he gently cuts the zip ties off her wrists "You really cut yourself up good on these. Let's get you fixed up."

She follows him down the hall into a large common room. Elderly people are milling about, reading books, playing chess, or just talking to others.

"These are who you are protecting?" she asks as he bandages her wrists.

"Nobody else will. Most of the staff left them to die." he motions to all the people around him "I couldn't leave them. Most cultures revere their elders, here, they put them away, leave them behind when things get bad. Some of the old ones, the ones more far gone, their family never came for them. Never bothered to see if they were alright."

Sam can sense the outrage in his voice at the treatment of these people, even before all of this. "You've had raiders before, haven't you? Trying to take advantage of the helpless."

"What guns we have, we're running low on ammo for. We need the guns in that bag."

"Why didn't you explain that to Rick? I'm sure he would understand?"

* * *

"I see my guns, but they're not all in the bag." Guillermo says, looking at Rick's group.

"You said come back locked and loaded." Rick replies.

Daryl holds his rifle, aim steady, wishing this show would get on the road. An elderly woman in her nightgown and slippers shuffles over to one of the men behind Guillermo.

"Get that old lady out of the line of fire." Daryl says, annoyed.

She turns and sees Rick in his sheriff uniform, and tries to protect her grandson. "He's a good boy. He's had trouble with the law, but he's straightened out. He's a good boy."

"I'm not here to arrest your grandson. He's helping up find a missing person. Samantha." Rick takes off his hat and lowers his gun.

"The pretty girl? She is here. Come." she waves Rick and the group to follow.

They follow the woman down the halls, seeing the older people , in their rooms being attended to by nurses, or family members. In the common room, people are gathered around a man in a chair while Felipe helps him use his inhaler.

"What is this?" Rick asks, seeing Sam standing in the crowd.

"Asthma attack. He couldn't get his breath all of a sudden." she says, more or less completely unharmed.

"We thought you were being eaten by his dogs." T-dog says, slightly outraged.

Sam smiles and walks over to a dog bed where three Chihuahuas are yipping like crazy and picks one up. "These vicious guys? They'll bark you to death, that's about it."

Rick glares at Guillermo "Can I have a word with you?"

* * *

Sam puts the dog back on the bed and goes over to Daryl and wraps her arms around him. "I was so scared, but I knew you wouldn't leave me here."

"You get kidnapped like that again, an your on your own." he says, no real menace in his voice, and gingerly puts an arm around her.

They walk out of the city and head back to the truck, having only given away a few guns. They get to the other side of the fence and are met with empty train tracks.

"Where's the van? We parked it right there." Glen asked, panicked.

"Who could have taken it?" Sam asks

"Merle." Rick answers.

"He's gonna be bringing some vengeance back to camp then." Daryl says, and they set out at a fast pace back to camp.

The cars are just visible when the echo of screams and gunfire reach them.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N Heh, this chapter is really long. But it covers a lot, and the end is kinda sweet, totally worth the wait. Much love to you all! Love reviews. Until next week, enjoy!

* * *

Rick takes off at a full out run, yelling for Lori and Carl. Daryl can hear people being called to the RV. He and Sam follow Rick, taking out any of the eaters in their way. Some of the people at the lower end of the camp have already been lost.

Sam stares at the carnage below her. Amy lies dieing in front of the door to the RV, Andrea holds her hand, crying over her and stroking her hair. Bodies are strewn over the hillside, both their camp and the walkers. People all over are crying either with or for their loved ones. Rick and Lori both have their arms around Carl, all crying in relief.

* * *

Sam looks at him and he can see the pain clear in her eyes. This scene must bring back memories of the two kids they lost. She starts walking towards him and, for the second time that day, wraps her arms around him and buries her face in his chest.

* * *

She can feel him relax a little after the initial surprise of her actions wears off, and he awkwardly wraps his strong arms around her, tentatively stroking her back, helping her keep calm.

Suddenly a realization dawns on her and she pulls away "Oh god, I'm so sorry. You lost your brother today, and I'm trying not to break down over some people I hardly know. I'm such an idiot."

He catches her wrist before she can walk away and gently pulls her back into his arms. "Merle was hardly there anyway. Hard to miss what ya don't have."

* * *

He couldn't stand the idea of her going away when she is clearly so upset. The comforting actions come a little easier than the first time she cried on his shoulder, but he is still unsure.

"Let's get you to lay down. Get some sleep. Everything looks better in the morning." he says, something his mother used to tell him, while leading Sam to their tent.

"You'll be on guard, right?" she asks, laying down for only a minute, but already drowsy.

"Yeah, don't worry bout it." he goes to stand and leave the tent when Sam reaches out and grabs his hand.

He doesn't pull away, and she doesn't let go, so he sits back down again, her hand in his now.

* * *

Daryl was almost right. When Sam wakes the next morning the aftermath of the night before isn't quite so bad, now that it's easier to see who from their camp was lost and which were already walkers, but the morning is still filled with the awful task of burying or burning the bodies and making sure none of their fallen people will get up again. Andrea still hasn't moved away from Amy, and Sam can hear the whispered argument behind her on how to approach it.

"Clean shot, through the brain." Daryl argues "Hell, I can hit a turkey between the eyes from this distance."

Sam walks up to him, grabbing him arm. "Don't you dare. She'll handle it when she's ready. Not like Chris."

* * *

Daryl pulls his arm away "Wake up Jimbo, we got work to do. You left my brother to die, you people had this coming!"

Daryl is the first to grab a pick axe and get to work. When he gets to the mauled body of Ed Peletier, Carol stops him.

"I'll do it. He was my husband."

Daryl shrugs and gives her the pick axe. Carol takes the axe, swings it over her shoulder and brings it down once, twice, too many times to count until what used to be her husband's skull is a pulpy mix of red and white.

* * *

Sam walks over to Carol, who has started sobbing too hard to lift the axe again. She hands the axe off to Daryl and leads Carol to a stump to sit down.

Jim, having been bitten during the attack, sits by the RV while everyone tries to figure out what to do.

"What do you suggest?" Shane asks

"I say we put a pick axe through his head, an the dead girls and be done with it." Daryl suggests.

"I heard the CDC was working on a cure. Maybe they have one by now. There would be no way to let anyone know." Rick reasons "We have a sick man, he just needs help."

He listens to Shane and Rick debate which way would be best, getting more and more agitated .

"Ya'll lookin for aspirin. Why dontchya do what needs to be done!" he turns and runs at Jim, axe raised.

* * *

Sam hears the hammer clock and rushes to stop Daryl.

"We don't kill the living." Rick insists.

"That's funny, coming from a man who put a gun to my head." he shoots back.

"Rick," Sam pleads, grabbing Daryl's arm "Come on Daryl.

"Fort Benning." Shane suggests, "The government would try to protect their own bases. It's well fortified."

Sam's stomach drops as the last conversation with Andy rushes back to her. "No. We can't. it was lost in the beginning. My friend was there."

"Maybe it's cleared out now. Think of all the food, the ammo. We would be set there." Shane brushes off her warning.

"That's a hundred miles away." Rick argues "We're low on gas and water. The CDC is much closer."

* * *

The next morning Sam walks over to Daryl "We're going to the CDC, we need to get packed."

"We don't need to stay with these people, you know." Daryl says as they pack up camp "We were good on our own."

Sam stops and looks at him, "I still think we're better in a group."

"What if the CDC is a bust? Then we'll be stuck on the outside of the city, with no resources, at dusk."

"Well then we'll figure something out. But we can't just stay here."

"So let's get going" Daryl resigns and continues taking apart the tent.

* * *

Their caravan shrinks a little, the Morales family leave to go find their own family, and Jim can't take the ride and asks to be left behind. They arrive at the CDC just as night is starting to fall. The doors are sealed tight. The group starts to break, Shane insists they try for Fort Benning again, Rick is banging on the garage door with Sam and Daryl is taking out all the walkers their noise is attracting. Almost everyone else is screaming or crying.

"Shane, Fort Benning is lost!" Sam screams at him "Do you know how many people are in an army base? Or how secure it is? There is no way anyone could have gone in and gotten it cleared out."

Sam and Rick pound more furiously on the door until Lori and Daryl come to pull them away. Rick swears he sees the camera move and starts yelling at the person he thinks is. They give up and head back to the cars when one of the doors opens and a sterile light flows over the pavement to them. Without hesitation they run inside. Dr. Edwin Jenner is the only person left at the CDC. He explains how everyone else either left or "opted out", and he only stayed because of a promise.

* * *

Sam appears right before dinner, smiling ear to ear at Daryl. He can't figure out why until she produces a bottle of whiskey from behind her back.

"It took me forever to find this." she says.

Daryl smiles back at her and breaks the seal on the bottle, taking a big sip.

"Hey!" Sam grabs the bottle back, splashing it on her hand in the process. She absently licks the dripping liquid off her hand before taking a sip.

* * *

He watches, fascinated, as she licks a stray drop off the back of her hand. He tries to prevent the blush that is creeping up his neck from reaching his face by grabbing the bottle back again and taking a deep drink.

Jenner helps them make a large dinner, making sure everyone has a full belly before leading them down to the dorm quarters.

"Rec room there, you kids might like it, just don't use anything that uses electricity. Same goes for the showers, don't use all the hot water." he bids them goodnight and walks back to the lab.

The group can hardly contain their excitement at the idea of a shower, hot or not, and they all scatter into their rooms.

Sam drops her bag onto the floor and immediately strips out of her clothes and jumps in the shower, not waiting for the water to heat up. She washes her hair a few times in quick succession, amazed at the rejuvenated feeling she gets from washing away all the sweat and grime. She steps out, feeling like a new person and towel dries her hair enough to put it in a loose braid before throwing on probably her last pair of clean clothes and heading to the rec room.

Sophia and Carl have a game of checkers set up, Carl is ahead by a few pieces. Sam sits on the couch behind Sophia and whispers a few moves into her ear, tying the game.

"You're so good!" Sophia says with admiration, adding three checkers to her stack "King me!"

Sam smiles "My sister an I used to play a lot when we were younger."

"You have a sister?" Sophia asks, completely intrigued "What's she like? I always wanted a sister."

"Well," Sam forces the words past the lump in her throat "she's fifteen, and she loves making trouble for me. Her and my mom used to fight a lot. Mostly about stupid stuff. She ran away a few years ago, me and my best friend, Andy, spent all night looking for her. I was so worried."

"What happened?" Carl asks, trying not to sound too interested.

"We were about to call the cops to come help us find her, when I see her hiding in a tree at the park across the street from our house." Sam smiles at the memory "I was so mad at her, I yelled at her for twenty minutes."

"She sounds like quite a handful." Carol says from the bookcase.

"She is." Sam says sadly. "I wish I knew if they were ok or not. I haven't been able to talk to them since before all this. Not knowing is worse, I think."

* * *

Daryl sits on the edge of the bed, hair still damp from the shower, the bottle of whiskey sits on the table next to the bed, still mostly full. His brother, his only family is gone. Merle might not have been much, but he was family. The only person who cared, even a little of Daryl was alive after their mom died. Well, when we was around anyway. Merle didn't give a shit what happened to Daryl while he was gone, only cared about himself. Why did Daryl think that would change now? Sam was right in the truck. That conversation seems ages ago. Merle has always been selfish, never bothered with anyone but himself. And Daryl knew never to expect anything more. Even now, Merle took off with no through of his brother.

Daryl is suddenly angry that Merle fooled him into thinking he cared about him. He picks the bottle off the nightstand and takes a deep drink.

"Dumb bastard." he says to the empty room "You think I wouldn't fuckin come back for you? You left me. Again! We protect our own. Til it's yer ass on the line, right? Fuck you Merle. You was never there anyway." The bottle shatters against the wall, sending glass shards and whiskey flying over the floor.

* * *

Sam passes Lori on her way to her room. Everyone is in a much better mood after the meal and showers, and of course the wine helped too. She crawls under the blankets on the cot and closes her eyes, welcoming a restful sleep. One minute passes, two, five minutes. She opens her eyes and sits up, unable to sleep in the quiet of her room. She slips out of her room and silently heads to the kitchen fishing out the other bottle of whiskey she saw earlier and heads back to her room, sipping it on the way. She drinks a good amount on her way back, hoping it will help her sleep, but after trying for another ten agonizing minutes, something is still off. Her fuzzy brain automatically jumps to Daryl.

* * *

There is a quiet knocking on his door as he is cleaning up the last of the glass pieces as best he can, but he ignores the knocks. Not wanting to talk to anyone else. Dale heard the bottle smash and has already been by to talk to him, Daryl shut him down pretty quickly and Dale left. He just wants to be left alone.

"Daryl, it's me." Sam's soft voice says from the other side of the door. "Can I come in?"

Before his brain can disagree, he opens the door and sees Sam, standing on the other side in a t-shirt and cloth shorts, another bottle in her hand.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just couldn't sleep. Thought this might help." she waves the bottle around "Didn't work."

"Ok?" Daryl says, a little confused.

"What happened?" Sam asks, seeing a few stray shards of glass and the wet spots on the wall.

"Nuthin. You comin in or what?" he says, a little embarrassed at the evidence of his outburst.

"Yeah." she steps inside, wary of the glass, and sits on the bed. "It's weird here. Too quiet."

"I guess." Daryl agrees with a shrug, not having noticed the lack of noise.

"There was always so much noise at camp. The sounds outside, other people." she blushes and quickly, and drunkenly, slurs "I got used sleeping with you."

He stares at her for a second before she tries to correct it, and her cheeks turn a deep crimson. "I mean, you know, hearing you. We slept three feet away from each other for like a month."

* * *

Sam stares down at the bottle in her hand, wishing she could crawl inside and take back what she said.

"I know what you mean." Daryl says quietly, even in the dim light she can see the blush creeping up his neck into his cheeks, he swipes the bottle back from her "Gimme that. I haven't had enough to drink for this."

Sam laughs "Don't hog it all. You already wasted the other bottle. Don't go wasting this one too."

They pass the bottle back and forth until they are both well and completely drunk.

* * *

"What do you miss most about the ay things were before?" Sam asks, laying on her side on the bed..

"I dunno. Sides from the movin around an the dead people, it aint much different." Daryl shrugs "Bout you?"

Sam thinks about it for a minute "Music. I miss music so much. I used to love to dance too."

Daryl watches her face in the dim light, she sits up and wavers slightly but looks at him and smiles.

Her face suddenly gets serious "You don't mind having me around, right? I'm not like some burden, holding you back?"

His foggy brain takes a minute to process the question, "Nah, you're actually pretty cool to have around."

* * *

She leans forward and presses her lips against his, but quickly pulls away "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."

Daryl is still sitting on the bed, somewhat shocked at what just happened. He tries a few times to say something "Don't worry bout it."

He watches as her eyes struggle to stay open, exhaustion and alcohol finally catching up to her. She is still trying to mumble apologies as he helps her get all the way onto the bed. He covers her with a blanket and starts to move off the bed.

"Don't go 'way." she mutters, eyes still closed, but reaching for him "Stay here, with me."

He lays down on the bed on his back and she quickly adjusts so she is laying against his side, her head and left hand resting on his chest.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N I know this chapter isn't my best, not a whole lot of dialogue and pretty short. I promise it will get better. Enjoy it anyway. Much loves 3

* * *

Sam wakes in the morning with a vicious pounding in her head, in a room not her own. She looks around for Daryl, but the room is empty. She makes her way back to her own room and changes for breakfast, the bright lights make her head throb even more. She remembers all the events the night before, kissing Daryl, falling asleep on his chest. She smiles to herself when she remembers the half asleep ghost of his lips on her forehead.

* * *

Daryl walks into the kitchen and pours himself a big cup of coffee. Glen and T-dog are already there. T-dog is working on breakfast and Glen is slumped over the table, head in his hands, groaning.

"I hate you so much." Glen says when he sees Daryl.

Daryl lets out a bark of laughter and takes a long drink of the coffee. More people start to trickle in and take seats around the table. Sam walks in and gives him a small smile, he nods a hello and sits down at the table.

* * *

"Vi, playback of TS-19." Jenner leads them to a screen after breakfast.

"Is that a brain?" Carl asks when a picture comes up on the screen.

Jenner explains how the lights in the video are everything that makes a person an individual, the virus attacks the brain, shuts it down and restarts the basic motor functions. Nothing of the person's original self remains.

"We haven't been able to figure out what it is, or if a cure is possible.."

"What is that clock counting down to?" Dale asks, bringing attention to the clock on the far wall with less than an hour on it.

Jenner pauses before answering, "Generator runs out of fuel. Plant wide decontamination..

The group exchanges alarmed glances while Jenner walks away. Rick, Shane, Glen and T-dog run off to confirm, or try to stop it. Everyone else in the room looks around startled, but heads back to their rooms.

Daryl grabs Sam's arm and slows her until everyone else is around the corner.

"Get your stuff packed and be ready to go. I don't like this guy." he whispers roughly in her ear.

A cold fear settles in her gut as she closes her door behind her. This place was supposed to be safe, their reprieve. At least for a while. Sam notices the silence quickly, the air shuts off. She throws everything in her bags, doing a quick check around the room to make sure she doesn't forget anything. Lori and Carol are out in the hall, talking about the loss of the air conditioning without alarming the kids too much.

* * *

Rick, Shane, Glen and T-dog get back into the same hall as the emergency lights kick on. They all return to the computer lab and Jenner is sitting at one of the computers.

"The French were the one that held out longest. They worked until the end.." Jenner says when he sees them coming back.

"What happened?" Andrea asks

"Same thing. Ran out of fuel." Jenner sits calmly as the group panics "The building shuts it's self down and deploys HIT's."

"How can I building do anything? It's a fucking inanimate object." Daryl says sarcastically.

"HIT? What is that?" Rick asks, Jenner remains silent "Vi, what is HIT?"

The panic level rises as Vi explains how the HIT's will light the air on fire, designed for the greatest loss of life and structure. Sam's stomach drops through the floor while Lori and Carol plead with him for the sake of their children.

* * *

The fury takes control of Daryl as the people around him panic. He catches the axe that Shane tosses him and they start hacking at the door. He hasn't gone through all this, losing Merle, Sam getting kidnapped, for it all to en here. He refuses to just roll over and die. The reverberation from the axe on the door is enough to cause an ache in his shoulders, but he refuses to give up.

"Those doors are built to withstand a rocket blast." Jenner yells over the cries and pleas of the group.

Daryl's vision becomes a haze of red and before he knows what he is doing, he has turned around and is springing down the ramp, ready to bury the axe in Jenners head. Rick, Dale and T-dog grab him just before he reaches the good doctor. Sam steps in front of him, placing both hands on his chest.

"Daryl, please. He's our only shot at getting out."

Behind them Rick tells Shane, who raised him gun on Jenner, the same thing. Shane unloads the gun into the computer behind Jenner's head.

With only minutes left, their bags by their sides, Jenner opens the lower doors, allowing them to escape to the upper level. Jaqui refuses to leave, shutting down any attempt to change her mind. Andrea sits near Jenner on the floor, set on staying also.

* * *

The reach the lobby and try the doors, but everything is shut down and locked. Daryl tried the axe, but it hardly makes a scratch, let alone do any damage. T-dog tries a chair, until it falls apart. Shane even tries shooting the glass, but nothing works.

"Rick," Carol tries to get his attention "I might have something."

"I don't think a nail file is gonna do it Carol." Shane bushes her off.

"That first night in camp, I washed your uniform." she digs around in her bag and pulls out a grenade "I found this in the pocket."

Daryl can feel his eyebrows raise and a glimmer of hope returns to the situation. He rushes over to Sam as Rick places the grenade.

"Get down." he says, pulling her to the floor and covering her head.

* * *

Pressed against the floor, her arms and Daryl's covering her head, Sam prays to any and all Gods that are listening that this works, they make it out. Those few seconds of anxiety seems to stretch on for hours when finally the grenade explodes and rocks her to her very core. She looks up and gasps in relief.

"Let's go." Daryl helps pull her to her feet "Move it."

Their feet hit the pavement and they break into a run towards the cars, taking out the advancing walkers, drawn by the explosion. Nobody is shy about using the guns while making a desperate run to the cars. Dale and Andrea make it out of the building with only seconds left .

* * *

"Where to now?" Sam asks Rick, back on the interstate.

"I still say Fort Benning." Shane is insisting.

"We can head in that direction at the very least." Rick sees Sam's exasperated face "Even if we head in a different direction later, it's away from the city."

Sam shrugs indifferently, tired of trying to argue with Shane.

"Let's ditch the truck." Daryl suggests to her "Almost outa gas an about to fall apart anyway."

"And take what instead?" Sam asks.

"Ever been on a bike?" Daryl asks, unable to keep a smile off his face.

They manage to fit everything in the saddlebags on Merle's bike, Sam puts on the helmet Daryl gives her and straddles the bike. Daryl takes a second to appreciate the sight of her on the bike before getting on himself.

"Hold on." he says to her, and the bike roars to life.

Sam wraps her arms around his waist, grasping her opposite wrist and presses her helmeted head to his back as they ride off.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N Hope you like this chapter better than the last one, I really liked it. I love all your reviews, so keep em coming! Enjoy it!

* * *

"I said it a thousand times, dead in the water." Dale gripes, fanning the steaming engine.

Daryl turns his attention to finding a way through the mess of cars ahead of them. He winds the bike around the cars, looking for a path that would be easiest to clear out, but heads back when the group spreads out, looking for anything useful.

* * *

Sam joins Lori and Carol, searching through cars, suitcases and trunks for anything they need. Clothes, medicine, water, weapons. She tries to avoid the cars with corpses still in them, not wanting to be forced to remember that these are peoples belongings.

Sam hears Rick's sharp whisper and sees him motioning her down, she drops to her belly and scoots under a nearby car. Everyone around her does the same thing, she can just see Lori and Carol under a truck a little ahead of her. She doesn't see Daryl through, which causes her heart to hammer painfully in her chest, but she doesn't dare go look for him now, not after hearing the panic and warning in Rick's voice.

The first pair of feet shambles past her, a dirty pair of house slippers, almost completely worn away, quickly followed by more and more feet. More walkers than Sam has ever seen at one time. Her heart pounds so hard, it seems like a miracle that the walkers don't hear it.

Sophia's panicked screams are the first sounds to reach Sam's ears after the last of the walkers have passes. The fear in that scream wrenches her heart and she tries as quick as she can to get out from under the car to help the girl. She gets out with enough time to see Rick jump over the guard rail and take off into the woods after the girl and the two walkers after her.

* * *

Daryl approaches Sam and at least one of the knots in his stomach loosens. "The hell was that?"

"I don't know. I guess from the city? Running out of food and moving on? But there's two of them after Sophia." Sam says, tears in her eyes as she reaches for his hand.

"I saw Rick head off after her. I'm sure he'll bring her back fine." he reassures her, holding her hand tightly "T-dog could really use some help though. Come help me bring him over here?"

Sam nods, glad to have something to distract her.

* * *

The afternoon drags on with no sign of Rick or Sophia. Lori and Carol are nervous wrecks and Carl, though he would never admit it, is worried too. Finally Rick walks back up the embankment and is met by expectant stares.

"She's not back yet?"

"You mean you left her out there?" Carol asks.

"I had to lead the walkers away Carol. It was her only shot." Rick explains :I left her at the creek and told her how to get back here. All she had to do was follow my directions."

"Let's go back, I'll see if I can pick up her trail." Daryl volunteers.

Sam steps forward, still holding his hand "I want to go too."

Daryl shakes his head, "You help hold down the fort here," he says to her softly "If you're out there with me, I'll be more focused on keeping you safe than finding the little girl, a'ight?"

He starts to follow the guys into the woods when Sam gently pulls on his arm, holding him back, he is about to say something when she quickly reaches up and kisses his cheek. "Be careful."

He gives a short nod, still unsure what to make of her recent shows of affection, he lets go of her hand and heads into the woods.

* * *

Sam keeps one eye on the woods as the sun starts to sink, making the shadows in the woods seem darker, more ominous. Everyone is only half focused on gathering supplies, just waiting for the guys to get back. Finally as the sun is just starting to sink below the horizon, casting an orange glow on everything Daryl steps over the guard rail, followed by Rick, Shane and Glen are a little farther down the road, but also making their way back.

Carol rushes over to them "You didn't find her?"

"We followed her trail for a while." Daryl says.

"She's still out there, we have to find her." Carol says, getting more and more upset.

"It's too dark now, we'd only be trippin over ourselves." he explains.

"Is that blood? Carol asks, paling suddenly.

"We took down a walker. There was no sign that it was anywhere near Sophia." Rick tries to reassure her.

"But how do you know?"

"We cut the sumbitch open, made sure." Daryl says, tossing away the gloves covered in walker guts before going over to Sam.

"What happened?" Sam asks.

"Dunno. She was doin fine for a while, then she started going the wrong way." he explains "We'll find her tomorrow, she can't go too far."

"If anyone can find her, it's you." Sam takes his hand.

* * *

Sam notices the slightest wince when he slings the bow over his shoulder, but she waits to say anything until they are back in the tent. "What happened to your shoulder?"

"Nuthin, just fucked it up the other day. Haven't had a chance to rest it." he starts to shrug before the pain stops him.

"That's what you get for attacking a solid steel door." Sam jokes "Come here."

"I was tryin to save us. Least I was doing something." he starts to jerk away from her.

"Get over here." Sam says, grabbing his shoulder and turning his around. "Let me help you."

* * *

Daryl starts to argue but Sam starts massaging his shoulders, her thumbs seek out the knotted muscles in his back and any arguments dissolve. The tension drains out of his shoulders while she works her thumbs in circles.

"Fuck, that's good." he groans as she starts working over his arms.

She can feel a smile creeping onto her face with every groan. She makes her way back up his arms and works on his lower back, until he slowly pulls away.

"Thanks." he says, rotating his shoulders "Actually feels a lot better."

Daryl turns around and she is right there, a small smile playing on her lips, her eyes glitter, unsure in the dim tent. She slowly raises on her tiptoes and brings her lips to his. Her soft, full lips just barely rest on his, she pulls away after a few seconds and looks at him.

"Here," she takes his hand with a smile and gently places it on her lower back.

* * *

Sam can see the doubt flicker on his face when she moves his hand, something inside tells her she can make that doubt go away. She puts her arms around his neck and brings her lips to his again, she can feel his arms tighten around her as she continues to kiss him. His beard scratches her chin, she risks a soft bite to his lower lip, his left arm tightens around her, right hand going to her hair. Sam runs her tongue over his bottom lip before breaking the kiss. They are both breathing heavier than they were a few minutes ago, and the temperature in the tent seems to have skyrocketed. She lets her hands slide down his arms, loving the way all that muscle feels under her palms. Daryl's eyes have a dazed look to them.

* * *

Daryl turns and unzips the tent, stepping out into the night air. The air outside is almost like a physical slap after the heat in the tent. Sam starts to follow him.

"I'm gonna walk the camp, see how watch is goin." he says before she can say anything, and starts to walk away.

He slings the bow over his shoulder, noticing less stiffness that before, at least in his shoulders. He decides to head into the woods, clear his head a little and passes Dale, keeping watch on the way.

"Goin for a walk." he says to Dale, not looking at him, or waiting for a reply, and jumps the guard rail.

He can still feel her lips lingering on his. All of this still so unreal to him, a girl, an gorgeous girl, actually seems interested in him. Even knowing Merle, she still wants to be around him. He is still incredibly skeptical and more than a little confused about her affection, but it seems genuine. Wind whispers through the woods, rustling the leaves on the trees, but not bringing any sounds outside the normal nocturnal sounds. He stands in the woods, listening to the night come alive around him before hiking back up the hill to the tent.

* * *

Sam comes up to him as soon as he is back in the tent, "Daryl, I'm sorry. I was outa line, I shouldn't have done that. You should have said something, or stopped me."

"Nah, wasn't anything like that." he assures her, standing awkwardly inside the tent, unable to look at her for too long. "I don't mind."

Sam can feel the blush creeping into her cheeks when she catches his last mumbled comment, grateful for the lack of light in the tent.

"Well, um," she stammers, suddenly feeling like a schoolgirl again "I'm gonna try and get some sleep."

She pulls the blanket over her head, embarrassed at how awkward she just was, and just barely hears what he says.

"So, uh," he murmurs quietly "you want me to stay? Like the other night?"

Sam lowers the blanket enough to look at him, make sure he's serious before she nods, a slight smile on her lips. He lays down next to her, one arm outstretched, the other under his head.

"Cmere." he says, waiting for her to move.

She scoots closer, blankets and all until his arm is wrapped around her and she can hear the steady beat of his heart.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N(Shit, my bad, Sophia's age has been fixed. Thanks Maddie-MarieXO for catching that) Hey guys. I'm trying to throw in some stuff, make it a little different from what goes on in the episode, so its not like just reading the episode again. Much loves to all you! 3

* * *

The search for Sophia picks up right at dawn the next day. The group, everyone except Dale and T-dog, fans our along the trail Daryl found the day before, Sam sticks close to him. They search all morning and into the early afternoon, hope starting to dwindle, until they hear the church bells. Everyone takes off at a run towards the sound.

They enter the little sanctuary and take out the three church going walkers. Rick, Daryl and Shane do a quick sweep of the rest of the church, calling for Sophia.

"Yo JC, you takin requests?" Sam hears Daryl ask sarcastically of the Jesus statue.

Sam, feeling quite deflated after getting her hopes up, walks through the small graveyard on the side of the church and sits down between a set of headstones, the overgrown grass almost coming up to her shoulders.

"Please," she starts praying "if there is anyone up there still listening, watch over Sophia, keep her from harm until we can find her."

She keeps her eyes closed a moment longer, listening to the wind sweep through the trees. She hears soft footsteps approaching her. Carl is standing at the little gate to the cemetery.

"What were you doing?" he asks, sitting down close to her.

"Praying, it's something I've been doing a lot of lately." she says with a shrug.

"For Sophia?" Sam nods "You think we'll find her?"

"I'm sure we will." she stands up, brushes herself off and musses his hair "Let's get back to the group, ok?"

* * *

Daryl walks over to Sam after Carl runs off "We're gonna head back, do another wide sweep through the woods on the way. Rick and Shane are gonna go a little farther before heading back."

He leads the group back along the creek, growing more and more irritated with them every minute. Andrea won't stop bitching about her gun, the trail, the weather, anything and everything she can think of. Carol, to her credit, is at least trying to keep her sobs and sniffles quiet, but she keeps muttering prayers and pleas to God.

"I'll tell you what it's worth. Not a damn thing." he lashes out a little " 's a waste of time, all this hoping and praying. We're gonna locate that little girl, an she's gonna be just fine. Am I the only one Zen around here? Good Lord."

He shakes his head at all their startled faces and keeps walking. Sam is the first one to catch up to him, but she doesn't say anything, just walks beside him.

An echo of a gunshot makes them all pause, he listens for anything else, another shot, sounds of a fight, but after a few minutes the sounds in the woods return to normal.

The shadows stretch across the forest floor at they continue making their way back to camp when a shriek pierces the woods, a quick glance around and it's obvious that Andrea is the one screaming. Everyone takes off in the direction of the scream, by the time they get there Andrea's on her feet again, staring with wide eyes at a girl that just saved her life.

"Lori. Lori Grimes?" she asks from atop her horse, Lori steps forward "You need to come with me. There's been a accident, Carl's been shot."

"Hold on. You don't know this girl." Daryl tries to pull Lori back "You can't get on that horse."

The group stares in silence as she rides away with Lori after giving Glen directions to her farm. The walker that had gone after Andrea starts to sit up, moaning.

"Shut up." Daryl says, shooting it as he walks past.

Sam can see Daryl is still annoyed when they get back to camp, and Dale only makes it worse, questioning why they let Lori ride off.

Once everyone has calmed down and T-dog's blood infection has been medicated, they try and decide what to do.

"T-dog needs stitches, we need to get him to the far, or he won't get any better." Dale insists, looking at Glen.

"I'm staying," Carol states. "what if she finds her way back and I'm not here?"

"I'll stay here with you and the RV." Dale agrees

"I'll stay too, tomorrow we can rig up a sign on one of the cars, leave supplies." Daryl suggests "We can come back and check every day, see if she's come back."

"Me too." Andrea and Sam say at the same time.

"Well if you're all staying, I'm staying too." Glen insists stubbornly.

"No, T-dog needs to get to that doctor. Tonight." Dale says, shooting worried glances at him.

Sam looks at the group, waiting for someone to step up, when no one does. "I'll go with you Glen."

* * *

Daryl was hoping Andrea would go so Sam didn't have to. Not that he really has any issues with the blonde, but she wasn't winning any points with him either. Not doing what she needed to with her sister, that stunt at the CDC that almost got Dale killed too, and her overall attitude towards everyone leaves something to be desired. He lays on the floor of the RV, between the table and cabinets, arms behind his head as a pillow, trying to sleep. But between Carol's quiet sobbing and Andrea messing around with the guns, it's impossible. He grunts and stands up, turning to Andrea.

"I'm gonna need my clip now." she places a full clip in his hand, he walks out of the RV and lets Dale know he's leaving. "I'm gonna walk the road for a while, check the woods a little."

He clicks on the flashlight and hears the door to the RV open and close again and rolls his eyes when he hears Andrea behind him.

"I'm coming too."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Dale asks, concerned.

"I'll be fine Dale" she all but snaps back at him.

Daryl suppresses a groan and starts walking down the road. Sure, Dale can be a little too fatherly at times, but he's just showing concern for the people he now considers his family, which is more than Daryl's father ever did. He cuts away from the road and heads into the woods, Andrea follows close behind him.

"You really think we're gonna find her?" Andrea asks.

"Christ, it ain't the mountains of Tibet, it's Georgia. She could be holed up in a farm house somewhere." Daryl says, annoyed with everyone's lack of faith.

"She's twelve..." Andrea points out critically.

"Hell, I got lost in the woods when I was younger than her. Nine days, eating berries, wiping my ass with poison oak. Only difference is she's got people looking for her."

"Who found you?" Andrea asks.

"Found my way back on my own. My old man was off on a bender with some waitress, Merle was doin another stint in juvie. Didn't even know I was gone. First thing I did was go into the kitchen and make myself a sandwich. No worse for the wear, cept my ass itched something awful." Daryl hears a rustling sound, and hearing Andrea's reaction to the sight, he smiles, this could be fun.

* * *

Sam leans against the banister of the wrap around deck, Glen sits in the rocker across from her, staring into the dark. T-dog is all stitched up and recovering.

"So," she says, tired of the awkward silence between them, "should we start setting up the tents? Or do you think they'll let us sleep in the house tonight?"

"I dunno." Glen replies "Should we ask someone?"

Sam pushes off the banister to go inside, but the screen door opens first. Maggie, the girl from earlier steps out and looks at both of them "Daddy says y'all can get set up in the living room for tonight, we'll help you set up the tents in the morning."

"How's Carl?" Sam asks.

Maggie shrugs and gives her a doubtful look "If your man and Otis don't come back soon, there's not much else Daddy can do for him."

Maggie goes back inside, Sam turns to Glen "I really hope Carl's gonna be ok. He's a good kid."


	19. Chapter 19

A/N Hey all! Now I know I missed a few days here and there, but come on, we all know how season 2 goes. A little more character interaction here. Let me know how you guys like it.

* * *

Daryl leads the way up the long drive to the farm house. They left a sign and supplies for Sophia on the hood of a car before they left the highway. Carol is still reluctant to leave the area, but he and Dale were finally able to convince her.

Sam comes out to greet him as soon as she hears the bike, "Carl's gonna be ok, and T-dog too, they're all still inside."

"Good." he says, glad to have her close by again.

"We, uh, have to do a memorial service in a little while, one of their men died getting all the supplies that Hershel needed to help Carl. Shane said the place was completely over run." Sam explains.

"Shane, huh?" Daryl questions, "Sure that's how it went down."

* * *

Maggie leads the group over to where they can make their new camp and they get started. Sam is in the tent organizing the last of their stuff when Daryl comes in behind her. She goes over to him and smiles.

"I missed you lat night. It was hard to sleep without you." She takes his hand, he doesn't pull away, but he doesn't return the affection. "You want to go out and look for Sophia more, don't you?"

"The more we look the better chance we have of finding her, ya know, alive." he says "I snagged a map last night, we can actually get this organized."

"Ok, we'll work out a plan with Rick and Shane." Sam wraps her arms around him "I'm sure we'll find her."

Sam watches as Daryl heads into the woods with the rest of the search group, wishing she could be part of it.

"You could have gone with them." Carol says, following her gaze.

"There's a lot of work that needs to get done around here. If Andrea's not going to pull her weight, someone has to do it." Sam tries to keep the bitterness out of her voice "We can't just leave all the work to you. That's not fair."

"I don't mind the work. Honest." Carol reassures her "It keeps me busy."

"That's still a lot of work for you. Lori already spends most of her time taking care of Carl." Sam tries to justify her staying

"I told you, I don't mind the work. Next time, you go with them. An extra set of eyes never hurts." Carol gives her a soft smile and keeps walking with her laundry basket.

Sam follows with her own basket "Carol, um, what do you think of Daryl?"

Carol smiles at her over the clothes line "He's a good man. So different from his brother. Not that Merle was all bad." she laughs at Sam's raised eyebrow "Now Ed, my husband, he was all bad. I didn't get that feeling about Merle, or Daryl. It's obvious that you care for Daryl."

Sam gives an uncertain smile "Yeah, but it's hard to tell if he feels the same way. There's almost no way to get him to open up."

"Give it time. You gotta realize, he's damaged, honey. He's got a lot to process right now." Carol hangs up the last of the laundry, pats her on the shoulder and heads into the RV.

Sam continues to hang the laundry, thinking over what Carol said.

* * *

Daryl steps out of the RV after giving Carol the Cherokee rose and walks over to the fire near his and Sam's tent.

"How did it go today?" Sam asks, handing him a plate of food.

"Found this little farm house not too far away, looks like she mighta spent a night there. There's a ridge I wanna check out tomorrow, get the lay out of the land from there. Maybe borrow a horse, cover more ground." he accepts the plate of food.

"Any signs of walkers?"

"Nah, I ain't seen or heard any in a few days."

"This place seems untouched. It's amazing." Sam stares at the starry sky.

"It'll be better when we find Sophia and can move on." he tosses the paper plate into the fire and watches it catch.

"You don't like it here? You wouldn't want to stay if we can?" Sam asks, focusing on him from across the fire.

"What's the point? We'd just have to move on anyway. Why get attached to a place? We'll never be able to stay in one place forever." he shrugs.

"You really don't think we could settle down somewhere, like our own little town? Keep it safe, rebuild life." she asks him.

He can hear it in her voice, the need for stability. A picture flashes in his mind of the kind of life she is describing. A sheltered town, farms, food, kids. He shakes the image out of his head.

"I dunno. It would be a lot of work. Maybe too much for right now. Then people would get too secure an forget what's really goin on outside their little walls. End up dead." he shrugs it off again.

"That's an awful grim way to think about rebuilding society." Sam says, a little disturbed.

"Why would you wanna go back to that anyway? The whole world was all sorts of fucked up before this. Maybe this was just a long time coming."

Sam is quiet for a long time. Daryl starts to wonder if she fell asleep, or he upset her too much.

"Sam," he says quietly.

"No, you're right. The world went to shit long before this, maybe, in some sick way, this is a new beginning." the fire flickers over her face and she hastily wipes a tear off her cheek "But this new world is so harsh, if any kids survive, they're gonna grow up to be hard, brutal people. Because those are the only kind of people that can survive like this."

"Aw, shit. Now you're crying." Daryl says, feeling guilty "I didn't mean to make you cry. I was just tryin to tell you not to get yer hopes up, ya know? Things might not ever go back to normal, least not in our lifetime." he waves her over "C'mere. What's with your idea that one place, one building has to be home?"

* * *

Sam laughs a little bit at that, and how crazy that idea is right now, since only an idiot would die defending a building. She sits down next to Daryl, he puts him arm around her shoulders and looks at her.

"So what's with the home obsession?"

"I would hardly call it an obsession." she says, then scoffs "The more I think about it, the sillier I realize it actually is. I mean, it would be nice to have somewhere stable again, but if I go down fighting, it won't be for a building. It will be protecting someone, not something." she gives a quick smile and glances down.

Daryl tightens his arm around her "That, I get."

Sam hides her face against his neck to try and keep the smile from coming out too much. She notices there is no stiffness in his posture, he doesn't pull away from her when she touches him. She's been spending most nights in his arms, she doesn't even have to ask anymore.

* * *

Sam starts the chores early the next morning with a knot in her gut. Daryl borrowed a horse and left to look for Sophia early this morning. The knot only gets worse as the day wears on. She tries to ease it by talking to Carol some more.

"What's wrong hun?" she asks as soon as Sam comes over.

"Just feeling a little uneasy. It started when Daryl left this morning. I havent been able to shake it."

"Try not to worry about him too much. He knows how to take care of himself." Carol tries to reassure her.

"I know, and I've never felt like this any of the other times he's gone out on his own. I don't know what it is."

Sam decides to throw herself into her chores, hoping to at least distract herself from the feeling in her stomach. She finishes all her normal chores and, needing more, walks over to T-dog, who is struggling to split wood with his still healing arm.

"I'll split, you stack." Sam says, taking the axe from him.

"You sure you got this?" he asks when she misses the first log.

She stares at him for a second "Yeah, I got this."

It takes a few more times, but eventually she gets into a rhythm,, and before long they have a nice stack of firewood. The burning in her muscles successfully distracting her from the feeling of unease. Before she can split the next log, Andrea starts yelling from her post on the RV. Sam can see a figure coming out of the woods. Walker.

T-dog takes off at a run, joining Rick, Shane and Glen. Sam can see Andrea taking aim, even though the sun is right in her face, and Dale talking to her.

Sam hears the shot, the figure drops to the ground, and Rick's yelling reaches them, Andrea's face falls and Sam drops the axe and breaks into an all out run towards the edge of the field.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N Hey guys! I promise the next chapter will be better, this one is just ok. Thanks for all the support! Keep the reviews coming, much love to you all! 3

* * *

Daryl comes to in a dim lit room. Hershel is preparing to stitch him up.

"I'm sorry I have nothing for the pain while I do this." he says "If you start to pass out, don't fight it."

Daryl starts to scoff, but all over pain stops him.

"I took care of your head while you were still out, luckily the bullet only grazed you."

Sam rushes into the room, her face flushed and slightly puffy, she goes to throw her arms around him before she remembers his injuries. She settles for kneeling next to the bed, holding onto his hand while he gets stitched up.

"Where did you find the doll?" Rick asks

"She musta dropped it crossing the creek somewhere."

"That cuts the grid almost in half." Rick points out "And now we have a trail."

"Any idea what happened to my horse?" Hershel asks.

"The one that threw me? If it's smart it left the country." Daryl says as Hershel finishes up his stitches. "Damn horse got spooked, threw me, an I landed in the bottom of the ravine."

Everyone else leaves the room to go to dinner, leaving just Sam and Daryl.

"Thank god Andrea's such a bad shot." Sam says, her voice slightly scratchy when she speaks.

"She was just protecting the group." Daryl defends "What happened to your voice? You been yellin?"

Sam looks away and opens her mouth to reply when Carol walks into the room "Oh, you should have heard her." she says with a smile "When she caught up with Andrea it was like all hell broke loose."

"I wasn't that bad, was I?" Sam asks.

"The guys had to hold you back. We're all just glad you dropped the axe, or someone really could have gotten hurt.." Carol puts a plate of food on the bedside table. "Dinner's ready, Sam, why don't you grab a plate?"

Daryl watches Sam leave and Carol starts to speak.

"I just want to let you know, you did more for my little girl today than her own daddy did in his entire life."

He turns away and pulls the sheet up around himself "I didn't do anything Shane or Rick wouldn'ta done."

"I know, and you're every bit as good as they are." she rests on his shoulder and he jerks away slightly "Every bit."

* * *

Sam takes a long drink of milk before refilling the glass and heading back to Daryl's room, the cold liquid soothes the scratching in her throat. She completely ignored Andrea when she passes her. She sits on the end of the bed, her plate of food resting on her knee.

"So you an Andrea really almost had it out?" Daryl asks after a few minutes of quiet.

"She shot you, almost killed you." Sam defends "Plus, she would have had it coming for more than just that anyway."

Sam sees the twitch of a smile in the corner of his mouth, but it doesn't go any farther. She puts her empty plate on top of his on the nightstand and rests her hand on his leg.

He looks her dead in the eyes "We could leave, we don't need these people. They sure as hell don't need us."

"Daryl, what are you talking about?" she questions, so confused "Of course they need us. You especially. You could probably take out more walkers than the rest of them put together, without firing a gun to boot." he just scoffs "At the very least, Sophia needs you. You're the only one who knows how to follow her trail. Shane wants to give up the search, and Rick would just be falling over himself out there. He's no tracker."

She can still see the wariness in his eyes, but he doesn't say anything else on the subject.

"Do you want me to leave?" she asks, feeling as awkward as she did those first few days with him. She removes her hand from his leg.

"Nah," he says just before she gets up to leave "'Sides, it's not you I'm tryin to get away from."

* * *

The next day they help Daryl move out to the tent, still on ordered bed rest. He lays on the cot someone lent the, and punches holes in the mesh window with one of his bolts. Sam left to take care of her chores shortly after Daryl got settled in the tent, sorry she couldn't stay in with him.

Andrea interrupts his solitude, handing him a book. "Dale said you might like this."

He takes the book and flips through "What, no pictures?"

"Look, Daryl. I'm really, really sorry." she says.

"You were just protecting the group. We're good. But hey," he says as she turns to walk out "you shoot me again, best pray I'm dead."

Being cooped up is driving him crazy, left alone with his thoughts is never a good thing. He grabs one of the blankets off the floor, a heavy wool one with a geometric pattern on it, and his hunting knife, and starts cutting a hole in the middle of it. Concentrating on each thread he cuts and ties, making sure it won't unravel. It keeps him busy for a while, but once he gets a rhythm down his thoughts start to creep in.

Was Merle right? Or rather his hallucination of Merle. His whole life, the only person that cared about him was Merle, at least that's what he always said, even though he never backed it up. Why should this group be any different? They don't care that Sophia's missing still, just a kid. He's the only one that cares enough to get out there every damn say and search the woods.

And then there's Sam. She would have kicked the shit out of Andrea, had there not been enough people there to stop her. But why is she so intent on staying with these people. They'd make a good team out there, on their own. But there's still Sophia. Sam was right when she said he is the only one capable of finding her.

His head starts pounding and all the aches from the day before are returning, the pain killers mist be wearing off. He drops the blanket, sheaths his knife and rolls onto his uninjured side, hoping sleep will lessen the pain.

* * *

Someone calling her name snaps Sam out of her daze. She looks around and sees Carl walking towards her. Rick's hat shading most of his face.

"What can I do for you officer?" she asks, resting her elbows on her knees.

Carl lifts the brim of the hat so he can see her, "We're going to the field for shooting practice. Dad asked me to see if you wanted to come."

"That's right." she stands "I bet you're excited."

"Yeah." he says, trying to hide the smile with a shrug. "It might be cool."

"I'll meet you at the truck." she pats his shoulder and he runs off.

She heads to the tent to let Daryl know she was leaving an finds him asleep when she pokes her head in. The sheet is mostly on the floor, reveling his naked and bandaged torso. She winces inwardly when she sees the bandage, but can't help admiring all that muscle. The way his broad shoulders taper down to a narrow waist. She can just see the scars that crisscross his back and shoulders, even though his back isn't facing her.

"You just gonna stand there all day?" the sleepy southern drawl almost makes her jump out of her skin.

Her face feels as hot as the fun and she quickly looks away while Daryl readjusts the sheet. "I thought you were asleep."

"I was. I heard you come in, I'm a light sleeper."

"Right," she stammers "um, I'm going to target practice. You good?"

"I need anything. I'll get up an get it." he pats the crossbow next to him "I'm good. You go learn to shoot."

Sam sighs and smiles as she leaves the tent.

* * *

Rick and Shane have as many bottles and cans as they could get a hold of sit up on the far fence as targets. Sam takes aim with the Browning Rick gave her, and squeezes the trigger. The bottle on the fence explodes. Her first hit! They've been at it for five minutes before she hit anything, but at least she's not the only one. Jimmy, Patricia and Beth all hit their first targets shortly after her. The first practice is a success, with everyone hitting at least one of their targets.

Sam heads back to her tent as soon as they get back, Daryl is out by the fire pit, smoothing out new bolts for his bow.

"How'd it go?" he asks, looking up at her.

"Good." Sam smiles "I hit all my targets. It's a lot different than the BB gun I used to shoot as a kid though."

Daryl laughs "Yeah, those are nothing. What did they give you?"

"Browning. Felt pretty good. But I'd still rather use something quieter." she pats the hatchet at her side. "Back up is always nice though. How you feeling?"

"Like I got hit by a mac truck, then shot. But I'm still kicking."


	21. Chapter 21

A/N Sorry for the lateness of the update guys. I love that I'm still getting new followers, I love when you guys give me reviews too! I don't know how I feel about this chapter. Let me know what you think. Much loves! 3

* * *

Daryl's restlessness increases over night. He wakes at dawn, intent on finding Sophia and getting out of here. Screw bed rest, he heads to the stable to saddle up another horse.

* * *

Sam notices Daryl's absence and starts asking anyone. if they've seen him.

"I thought I saw him headed towards the stables." Carol tells her "Isn't he supposed to be resting?"

"Yeah, he is." Sam all but growls, angry that he isn't listening to anyone.

She stops at the door to the stables, he is getting ready to saddle up another horse.

"What are you doing?" she demands "You're gonna hurt yourself more."

"Somebody's gotta be out there, lookin for that little girl. I'm the only one that gives a shit if we find her."

"Rick is taking a group out soon to look for her." Sam reaches out for him, but he jerks away.

"Get the fuck off me. Am I the only one that takes this seriously?" he yells at her.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Sam asks as he tries, and fails to lift the saddle and almost falls "Your gonna end up ripping your stitches."

"Just leave me be. Let me do this." he stalks towards her "The hell are you anyway?"

Sam doesn't back down, instead she takes a firm step forward and resists the urge to shove his shoulders, her hands balling into fists at her side

"Who the fuck do you think you are? You think you can bully me into not caring about you? You're dead fucking wrong. I lo…" she bites her tongue and looks away.

* * *

Daryl stares at her, eyes wide but turned away from him. Only a foot or so away from her, and he can see tears shimmering in her eyes. The tension between them is palpable. He grabs her by her upper arms, making her look at him again, and just as suddenly, he lets her go and starts to talk out of the barn, catching a glimpse of her bewildered face. He heads across the field, Carol catches up with him.

"Mind if I join you?" she asks.

He shrugs, but doesn't slow his pace for her. They walk in silence along the creek until Daryl spots the Cherokee rose bush, he points to it and nods to Carol.

"I believe your little girl is still out there. An we're gonna find her." he says, Carol rubs the petals from one of the flowers between her fingers "Even if I'm the only one around here who thinks it's worth it to keep looking."

"I know we will. God willing." she leans over and softly kisses his cheek.

* * *

Sam approaches the group huddled around the porch. "I thought you guys were gonna go look for Sophia. Where's Rick?"

"We were all set to go, but Hershel needed Rick for something. We were waiting on him but it's been a good hour or so." Andrea explains.

Daryl comes up to the porch. "Damn it. Isn't anyone taking this seriously? We got us a damn trail."

Sam sees Shane come stalking out of the woods, gun bag over his shoulder, shotgun in hand, despite Hershel's wishes that nobody have the guns out on the farm. He starts tossing the guns to members of the group.

"Look, it was one thing to sit around here picking daises when we thought this place was safe. But now we know it ain't. You gonna protect yours?" Shane hands a gun to Glen, Maggie and Carl try to talk him down "We ain't going anywhere. Now look, Hershel, he's just gotta understand. He's just got to. Now we gotta find Sophia, am I right?"

Sam looks around at everyone, brandishing guns. When Shane tries to give Carl a gun, Lori yells at him, telling him it's not his call to make. T-dog calls attention to the woods. The whole group runs over to Hershel and Rick, leading walkers out of the woods.

"You see what they're holding on to? These things ain't sick. They're not people. They're dead. Ain't gotta feel nothing for them. Cause all they do? They kill. These things right here. They're the things that killed Amy. They killed Otis. They're gonna kill all of us. Hey Hershel, let me ask you something. Could a living, breathing person, could they walk away from this?" Shane shoots the walker in Hershel's hand, demonstrating that no human could walk away from those shots.

* * *

Sams heart goes out to Hershel as he watches the walker he thinks in still a person get shot, multiple times before Shane puts a bullet in her brain. Rick is begging Shane to stop.

"Enough risking our lives for a little girl that's gone. Enough living next to a barn full of things that are trying to kill us. Enough, Rick, it ain't like it was before. Now if y'all wanna live, if you wanna survive, you gotta fight for it. I'm talking fight, right here, right now." Shane breaks the lock on the barn, despite begging from everyone in the group.

The walkers start to push their way out of the barn. Sam goes over to Carol, standing back from the group, needing to watch the horror with someone else. When the flow of walkers finally stops, and they are all truly dead on the ground, a small growling sound draws all eyes back to the barn. A child's sneaker appears in the doorway. Sophia steps out of the barn, and Carol breaks away from Sam and runs towards her daughter.

Sam stares at the thing that used to be Sophia, the gaping wound on her shoulder, and before she can stop the, the tears come.

* * *

Daryl grabs Carol around the waist when she tries to run past him and get to what used to be her daughter. She struggles against his hold at first, calling out to her baby girl. Her tears drip into his arm and when Rick steps forward, gun raised, he holds her tighter.

He can feel the sobs that wrack her think frame when the gunshot echos through the air. He tries to help her stand "Don't look. Don't look."

She shakes him off as soon as she is on her feet and runs off.

* * *

Sam lies on the floor of the tent, exhausted from crying until the rising temperature makes it too hot to stay inside. She scrubs her face with lukewarm water from her canteen and goes back outside to help with the funeral preparations. Carol and Daryl have been in the RV for a while. Sam goes to get them when everything is ready.

"Come on." Carol just shakes her head at Sam.

"That's your little girl." Daryl says quietly.

"That's not my little girl. That's some other thing. My Sophia was alone in the woods. All this time I thought… She didn't cry herself to sleep. She didn't go hungry. She didn't try to find her way back. Sophia died a long time ago."

Sam steps out of the RV, Daryl follows her, but walks right past her, towards the campsite, his shoulders tense and angry. She looks from the campsite to the funeral site , torn on which way to go.


	22. Chapter 22

A/N SOoooooo sorry that this is so late. Things have been a little crazy this week. This chapter came out pretty good I think, lots of Sam/Daryl time. Next chapter is all me, so we'll see how that goes. Much loves, keep the reviews coming! 3

* * *

"Hey Sam," Carl asks, catching up with her "Have you seen my mom anywhere?"

"No, kiddo. Not in a while. Why, what's up?" Sam asks, crouching to be on eye level with him.

"I usually don't go this long without seeing her, and I saw her going to your camp," he says "I thought, maybe you had seen her."

"I haven't, but maybe Daryl has. I'll go talk to him, you go get ready for dinner, ok?" Sam pats his shoulder as he nods and turns to go into the house.

Sam approaches the fire, not having seen Daryl since the incident at the RV "Have you seen Lori?"

"No. Why?" Daryl asks, hardly giving her any of his attention.

"Nobody's seen her in a while, and Carl said she was headed up here."

"Dumb bitch probably went into town on her own. She came up here asking me to go find Hershel and Rick. Told her I was done looking for people."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" Sam asks, a little surprised.

"I didn't figure she'd actually do it." he shrugs.

Sam walks back to the house in the fading afternoon to deliver the news.

* * *

In spite of himself, Daryl watches her walk away before heading into the woods to get his own dinner, like usual. He grits his teeth against the pain from the stitches and goes just a little deeper into the woods, glad that the noise from the cicadas helps mask his louder than normal trek. None of the squirrels seem very wary of his presence and make fast kills.

The anger starts to bubble up inside him. All Carol had to o was keep an eye on her damn daughter and none of this would be happening. They wouldn't be burying the little girl he failed to find and he wouldn't be sitting in the woods, breathing through his teeth as the stitches tug on the still tender skin.

The night deepens the shadows around him. He double checks the bolts, making sure he's still got them all, grabs his string of squirrels and goes back to camp. Sam comes up to their camp. He sees her stop at the line he hung up, looking at the hanging squirrels and walker ears.

"What?" he asks roughly.

"I'm just worried about you."

"Don't fuckin bother. I don't need you, or anyone else looking out for me." he starts walking away.

"Don't pull away, and don't pretend you don't care." Sam follows after him "You earned your place here, you tried harder than anyone to find Sophia. I know that. Finding her meant a lot to everyone."

"Don't give me that bull shit. Needing to earn my place. You gonna make this about my daddy? Some crap like that? Sophia wasn't mine! I didn't care!" he waves off towards the house "Carol's the one who's all alone now, why don't you go comfort her?"

"Because she's already coping with this. You're not!" Sam yells at him, her Boston accent starting to come out strong, "I don't know what you're doing, but it's not healthy. And you need to fuckin stop."

He stares at her, almost shaking with anger, and snarls "You're right, you don't know. But if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut."

"Why? You wanna hit me? Go ahead." she says with an angry smile "You see how long it takes me to hit you back. You need to scream at someone, vent it all out, fine. You need to throw a couple punches, do it. You do whatever it takes for you to get over this. But I'm not letting you pull away, I'm not losing you."

"Why do you even care so much?" his anger starts to drain away.

"Because I need you." she says, tears forming in her eyes. "I can't do this on my own."

"You got the group. You don't need me, like they don't need me." he tries to stay angry, knowing anger makes everything easier.

Sam sighs with a slight smile "Now who's the one who doesn't get it? Rick put you in charge of the search for Sophia."

"An look how well that turned out." he replies sarcastically.

"Point is, he trusted you, not just that you're a tracker and know the woods, but that you could go out on you own and keep your shit together."

He shrugs, all the anger gone.

"And me, I never would have had a chance without you. I never could have made it to Atlanta. I probably would have died at the house if you weren't there. I didn't have it in me to kill Chris. And you've pretty much kept me sane this whole time." she sways on her feet, the whole day finally catching up with her "But I need to get some sleep before I fall over."

* * *

The next morning Daryl is still trying to figure out how much of what Sam said is true, while everyone else is preparing to go into town and try to find Rick, Glen and Hershel, who still haven't come back. He's never had anyone make him feel like a part of anything. Never really had anyone want him to stick around.

Daryl spots the old blazer coming up the road to the farm "Hey. Looks like they're back."

* * *

Sam stands by the window in the living room, listening to them try to work out what to do with the kid they brought back with them. The poor kid is probably barely old enough to drink, and they're all sitting around talking about him like he's an animal. Rick is convinced that if they just drive him far enough out, he won't cause any trouble.

She tries to stay focused on the conversation, but her mind keeps wandering back to her conversation with Daryl, hoping she was able to get through to him. He has been ignoring her all morning, but just the fact that he's standing in the living room with all of them, gives her hope that he won't pull away from the group anymore.


	23. Chapter 23

A/N So, this chapter mostly just fun before shit starts getting serious again. I know there hasn't been much character interaction between Sam/Daryl and the other people in the group, (other than Carol) I might try to work on that a little. But I hope everyone enjoys it. I love that I'm still getting new followers, and please, if you get a second, just send a quick review, I love to know what you all think of the story so far! Much loves 3

* * *

Sam wakes early in the morning, the sun is barely starting to come up. Today is the day they release Randall. Some of the group is still against the decision, mostly Shane and Andrea. In face, Shane seemed a little too eager to kill him, instead of looking at the other options. Sam thinks back to the story Shane told everyone about Otis and decides to go find Daryl. Luckily he isn't too far away.

"Hey," she sits on the ground next to him "can I ask you something?"

"Depends on what it is." he says.

"A few weeks ago, when Shane was talking about Otis, you were the only one that seemed not to buy it."

"Yeah?"

"Why not?"

"He came back with his own gun, and a dead mans gun. Wasn't too tough to figure out.

"Couldn't he have gone back for Otis' gun? If his was out of ammo?" she asks.

Daryl shakes his head "In that little fairy tale he told y'all, Otis covered him so he could make it to the truck, Shane ain't stupid, he wouldn't go back when he's got a chance to get out."

"Do you think he's dangerous?" Sam asks, worried.

"Not to everyone. There's only two people, well I guess three now, that he wants."

"Lori and Carl."

"And the baby. He's only got it out for Rick, but don't put yourself in his way. I don't think he'd care who you are."

"Should we tell Rick, or someone? Warn them about Shane?"

"Nah. Most of them already suspect, and whoever doesn't, doesn't wanna know."

After a long pause, Sam arches her back, stretching. "So, what do you do up this early?"

Daryl watches her with a raised eyebrow "Nice change of topic. An I dunno, stuff. Go into the woods an get some huntin done. Clean my weapons. Stuff I have to do later anyway."

"I'm so sick of chores," she whines with a mischievous look "wanna play hooky today? Come on, it'll be fun."

"An do what?" Daryl asks, chuckling at her enthusiasm.

"I don't remember the last time I went swimming. There's plenty of water around here, in the woods." she talks excitedly "Are any of those creeks deep enough to swim in?"

"I didn't really check. But the pond by the old farm house had a dock, so it's gotta be decent, right? Couldn't tell ya what the water's like, but at least it's something."

Sam smiles "You're swimming too, right?"

"I don't really swim."

"But you know how, right?" she has to ask, he nods "Well, maybe Dale will let us borrow some of his fishing stuff and you can catch dinner."

* * *

The temperature climbs, the tree cover helps a little, but by the time they reach the pond, Sam's tank top is clinging to her damp body. A breeze, as they exit the woods, catches the cooler air off the water. She lifts her hair off her neck, cooling herself. The wind makes small ripples in the water, the whole thing looks like a painting.

"This place is great." she says, making her way over to the dock, "It doesn't even look like there's too many weeds. I can't wait to go in."

She sits back and starts unlacing her boots. As soon as her boots are off she quickly sheds her shirt and pants until she is just in her bra and panties and jumps into the water, noticing, with a slight frown, how Daryl has avoided looking in her direction the whole time she was undressing.

* * *

Daryl hears the splash and looks at the ripples spreading from where she jumped in, waiting for her to resurface. He searches the water for her, but the glare from the sun keeps him from seeing much farther than where she jumped in. She finally breaks the surface almost half way across the pond.

"Oh my god. Daryl, this water is amazing. You have to come in." she starts swimming back to the dock.

"I'm good." he says, watching the water shimmer as she moves though it at a lazy pace.

She stops off to the side of the dock, staring at him, pouting "You're no fun. Make me go swimming all by myself." she playfully splashes water towards him, not quite reaching him, but tiny droplets land on her clothes "Oh crap. Oops."

"Would you rather be doing chores?" he asks.

"Not even a little bit." she laughs, floating on her back "So what was it like growing up down here?"

"Same as 'nywhere, I guess," he answers, caught a little off guard by the question "Why?"

"Well, I grew up in the city, I mean my parents tried to do outdoorsy stuff a much as they could, we went camping a few times. But it wasn't the same."

"Ain't much different. 's not like we all got shacks in the middle of the woods or nothing." his good mood starts to darken a little "It ain't like the movies neither. Not everyone's nice."

"I know that." she changes direction "What was it like growing up in a neighbor hood? Were there a lot of kids your age?"  
"Couple of em. More of 'em were Merle's age. Didn't want no kid brother hanging around. Specially after Merle went to juvi a few times. Nobody wanted us around after that."

"Must be nice to live so close to so much woods though."

"Yeah. It was a nice escape." he doesn't bother going into detail about how true that statement is.

"Sometimes I really miss being a little kid," Sam says, pausing "but not so much anymore. I wouldn't wanna be a kid dealing with this. But kids adapt faster than us, so I don't know."

* * *

Sam notices the silence from Daryl, and decides to try a new tactic. She swims to the end of the dock and pretends to try and lift herself out of the water.

"I can't get enough leverage. Can you help me out?" she extends her hand to him and braces herself, knees bent on the bottom of the dock.

He grabs her wrist and before he can pull her up, she yanks his arm and he topples into the pond. Sam bursts out laughing and grinning ear to ear when he surfaces, scowling at her.

"What the fuck? Now my knife's all wet an my boots are gonna take forever to dry." he complains. He opens his mouth to continue, but she splashes him and fills it with water. "Git yer ass over here."

"What are you gonna do? Spank me?" she squeals and kicks away, splashing him with more water.

He lunges for her, trying to grab her ankle before she kicks away again. She dives under the water and disappears. He can feel the water swirl around him, but he can't catch her. She comes up behind him, pushing down on his shoulders and dunking him under water. They chase each other around the pond for a while, splashing and dunking whenever they get the chance, until the water is full of little waves.

* * *

Sam lies on the dock, still in her lingerie, basking in the sun and the wonderful feeling of cleanliness, while Daryl is sitting next to her, trying to wring out his clothes as much as he can without taking off anything other than his boots and socks.

Sam glances over at him, "You know, you could get more water out of them if you took the clothes off…"

"Shut up." he quips back "Sides, wasn't today your day for laundry? Could always have you wash them anyway."

"No," Sam sticks her tongue out at him "we skipped chores today, remember?"

Daryl glances at the sky "We should probably start heading back."

* * *

When they get back to camp they are mostly dry, with the exception of Daryl's boots. Without asking, Sam builds up the fire so he can dry his boots quicker.

Carol approaches Sam not long after they get back "Oh good. I was starting to worry about you two."

"Sorry I skipped out" she says, looking down "I just couldn't do chores this morning. I hope you didn't get stuck picking up my slack."

"Don't worry about it. I'm actually relieved you're taking a day off, both of you by the looks of it. Everyone deserves a day to rest and recharge." Carol pats her shoulder "But it's been an … interesting day here."


	24. Chapter 24

A/N Hot off the press, just for you guys! This chapter was on and off for me, aside from it being hard to write because of Dale. I'm really excited to be getting to the end of season 2. I have some surprises in store soon! Hope you guys like this one. Reviews are always greatly appreciated. Much loves!

* * *

Daryl ignores the stinging of his split knuckles and punches Randall again.

"I told you." he cries when Daryl winds up to hit him again.

"You ain't told me shit." he pulls out his hunting knife and grabs the kids leg "You ever pull off a scab? You start off real slow, but sooner or later you just gotta rip it off."

He whimpers and pleads with Daryl when he puts the blade to his healing leg.

Sam sits on the railing of the deck, iced tea in hand. Maggie joins her and sits on the rocker against the wall.

"I heard about Beth," Sam says "I'm so glad she's ok. Andrea's got a real way with people, huh?"

Maggie scoffs "Yeah, she's a peach."

"So you and Glen?" Sam raises an eyebrow. "Come on, I know you've gotta be dieing to share with someone."

"Only if you share on you and Daryl…"

"Not much to share." she shrugs "You've probably done more with Glen than I have with Daryl."

"Wait, what?" Maggie stares at her "No."

"It's," Sam pauses "complicated. He's complicated." she smiles "But I'm determined."

In the distance Daryl comes out of the shed, Sam and Maggie walk over to the gathered group.

"What did you find out?" Rick asks.

"He's got 30 men, heavy artillery. Our boys'll be dead, and our women, well they'll wish they were." Sam sees his bloody knuckles when he adjusts his crossbow on his shoulder, but doesn't say anything.

"What did you do?" Carol asks, noticing his hands too.

"Had a chat." he brushes past her, Sam starts to follow him..

"He's a threat. If he gets back to his group. The choice is clear now." Rick says.

"Now hold on," she can hear Dale start to argue.

* * *

"Your hands ok?" Sam asks, glancing again at his busted hands.

"Yeah, fine. Don't you start getting on my case now too." he sends her a pointed look.

"You were just doing what you had to, I get it," she holds her hands up "just like I know, as much as it sucks, we can't just let him go."

Daryl gives her a nod of approval, "This group's a fuckin mess. No one knows who to follow anymore."

"You're not thinking of leaving again, are you?"

"Nah, guess not. But this shit's getting old."

"Sam," Dale approaches her "how do you feel about giving Randall the death penalty?"

"It's best for the group Dale." she says "That's really what you gotta look at."

"How do we know he won't be an asset to the group, given the chance?"

"How do we know he won't stab our backs if we let him stay?" Sam argues back.

"So you're willing to condemn him before we even know him?" Dale looks at her hard, disappointed.

"I don't know that we can afford not to. The world just isn't the same anymore, we all know this. We can't do the jury and trial and all that anymore. I wish I could stand up there with you and give him a chance, I really do Dale, but I don't see it being the right decision."

"Daryl says this group's broken. The more people I talk tom the more I start to think he's right." Dale shakes his head and walks away.

* * *

The group is gathered in Hershel's living room again, Dale is still trying to convince people that killing Randall is the wrong decision.

"This is a young man's life! And it's worth more than I five minute conversation." Dale scolds everyone. "Is this what it's come to? We kill someone because we can't decide what else to do with him?" he looks at Rick "You saved him. Now look at us. He's been tortured, he's going to be executed. How are we any better than those people we're so afraid of?"

Everyone in the room turns their eyes away from Dale.

"We all know what needs to be done." Shane says.

"No," Rick shakes his head "Dale is right. We can't leave any stone unturned."

"What's the other option? We haven't been able to come up with one viable solution." Andrea says, cutting Rick off.

"So let's work on it!"

"Stop it! Just stop it." Carol interrupts "I'm sick of everybody arguing and fighting. I didn't ask for this. You can't ask us to decide something like this. Please decide- either of you, both of you- but leave me out."

"Not speaking out," Dale stares at her "or killing him yourself, there's no difference."

"Alright, that's enough." Rick says, holding up his hands to stop them "Anybody that wants the floor before we make a final decision has the chance."

The room is quiet for a few heartbeats, people glancing at each other.

"You once said we don't kill the living." Dale tries to reason.

"That was before the living tried to kill us."

"But don't you see? If we do this, the people we were, the world that we knew is dead. And this new world is ugly. It's … harsh, it's survival of the fittest. And that's a world I don't wanna live in. And I don't believe that any of you do. I can't. please, let's just do what's right." Dale waits for anyone to speak up, change their minds "Isn't there anybody else who's gonna stand with me?"

"He's right," Andrea nods "we should try to find another way."

"Anybody else?" Rick looks around.

Sam steps forward, unable to believe she's actually agreeing with Andrea on something "There has to be another way to go about this."

When no one else speaks up, Dale shakes his head "Are y'all gonna watch too? No, you'll go hide your heads in your tents and try to forget we're slaughtering a human being. Whoa. I won't be a party to it." Dale walks our of the room, putting his hand on Daryl's shoulder "This group _is _broken."

* * *

Sam sits on the deck in the chilly night air, her arms wrapped around herself, warding off the chill, both external and internal. Maggie walks up to her and hands her a heavy sweatshirt. Sam takes it with a weak smile of thanks and pulls it on. They can just barely make out the shapes of Rick, Daryl, and Shane leading Randall towards the barn.

"I don't" Maggie starts "I' m still so confused. Part of me wishes I had stood up with you and Andrea, the other part of me still sides with the rest of the group."

"I know. I can't blame you".

Daryl escorts Randall back to the shed, his grimy bike rag stuffed in his mouth so the kid will be quiet. He didn't want to be right about the group being broken. Him and Sam would do just fine on their own, but before it all went to shit, the group wasn't bad.

He hears a commotion outside and hurriedly finishes tying up Randall before bolting towards the noise. He follows the screams into the field behind the barn and tackles the walker off Dale, taking it out as soon as they hit the ground. He takes one look at Dale and starts calling for the others.

"Over here! Help! Run!" he waves his arms "Hang in there buddy."

The group runs over and quickly takes in Dale's condition. Sam covers her mouth and sobs.

"Hershel! We need Hershel!" Rick shouts "Dale, hold on. You'll be ok. We have to get him back to the house."

"He won't make the trip" Hershel says grimly.

"Then we'll do t it here." Rick says "Glen, go back to the house."

"Rick." Hershel interrupts, shaking his head.

The blood pounds in Sam's ears so hard that it starts to drown out the sobs and cries from the rest of the group. Tears fill her eyes as she watches Dale gasp for breath and start to go into shock. She walks over to Daryl and hides her face in his shoulder.

"He's suffering" Andrea sobs "Do something."

Rick slowly unholster his pistol, aiming it at Dale's pleading face. Daryl steps away from Sam and gently takes the gun from Rick, kneeling on one knee.

"Sorry brother."

* * *

"It's me." Daryl says softly as he steps into the tent.

Sam is on the ground on the makeshift bed, and the tears just keep streaming down her face, and her breath is coming in shuddering gasps. She looks at him over her shoulder, opens her mouth, closes it again and shakes her head as fresh tears start to fall. Daryl doesn't say anything else, just lays down next to her. She moves her head to his chest and he wraps his arms around her, letting her tears soak into his shirt while she cries herself out.


	25. Chapter 25

A/N So this chapter wraps up season 2, which means I have a lot of fun chapters in front of me. Hope you guys like it, let me know what you think. Much loves 3

* * *

"Daryl, what you did last night," Rick starts.

"No reason you should have to do all the heavy lifting." Daryl says, trying not to think about it.

Rick nods, "So you good with the plan?"

"I don't see you an me tradin haymakers on the side of the road" Daryl glances at Shane who just rounded the corner of the house "Nobody'd win that fight."

* * *

Sam hauls the last of their stuff into the house, dropping his stuff off in the dining room.

"Sam," Maggie gets her attention "you wanna come with me for a minute?"

"Sure thing Maggie." Sam drops her stuff "What's up?"

"I couldn't help but notice your lack of cold weather clothes." Maggie nods to the borrowed sweatshirt "I might not have much, but what I do have, you're more than welcome to."

They ascend the stairs to her room "I couldn't ask that Maggie."

"You're not asking. I'm offering. What am I gonna do with all my clothes anyway? I can't watch you freeze while I have all this extra stuff up here." she pulls two decent sized plastic bins out of her closet.

"I really appreciate this. I obviously have no idea I would have to pack for the end of the world." Sam chuckles "I definitely would have packed better."

Sam searches through the bins, making a small pile of things for herself, a few jeans and leggings, one or two more sweatshirts and a nice heavy down jacket. She pulls out a butter soft leather jacket that looks too big to be Maggie's. Sam turns to her and raises an eyebrow.

"Old boyfriend's." Maggie blushes and laughs "Daddy doesn't know about that one. Do me a favor and please take it."

Sam looks around the room, taking in all the pictures of Maggie's family and friends, and a pain starts in her chest. She holds the clothes against her chest. "Thanks again Maggie. All my stuff is back up in Boston, hopefully with my mom and sister. I was only supposed to here for a few days."

"Have you ever thought about trying to find them?" Maggie asks.

"Of course I have. I just wouldn't know how, I highly doubt they stayed at home, I don't even know where to start."

"Home sounds like a good start, I think you should at least try."

* * *

Daryl digs through his pack on the dining room floor and sees Sam coming down the stairs, "Sam. Have you seen my pistol?"

"No. I thought it was with your bike?" she says, stuffing clothes into her own pack "I could have sworn it was."

"Yeah, me too." he closes up the pack and stands "Rick an I are taking Randall out soon, was hoping to have the little extra backup."

She looks like she wants to say something, but not one to pry, he lets it go. "Be careful out there, ok?"

"We're just going a few towns over ,we'll be back in a couple hours." he straightens his jacket and vest.

"Humor me.' she says with a sigh.

"Alright, alright." he gives a quick smile at her concern "I gotta get goin. T-dog's getting Randall now."

She nods and goes back to organizing her pack.

Daryl walks out of the house and into chaos.

"Rick," Shane yells, coming out of the woods "He's gone. Little shit must have slipped his cuffs. I followed him into the woods. Bastard hit me with a rock, I blacked out. He musta taken off into the woods. Took my gun too."

"The shed door was still locked from the outside." T-dog points out. "How did he get out?"

"Maybe he climbed up the rafters and out a hole in the roof. Point is he's in those woods and he's armed. What if he gets back to his boys? You think he's just gonna forget all this?" the agitation is coming off Shane in waves.

"I thought this was the plan?" Carol says "Let him go?"

"Far from here." Rick corrects "We can't risk him coming back with men. We need to find him. Glen, Daryl, come on."

* * *

"Where are Shane and Rick?" Lori questions Daryl and Glen when they get back.

"Must still be out there. We found Randall," Daryl says "he was turned, funny thing was, he wasn't bit. His neck was broken."

* * *

Sam sees the flicker if moonlight, illuminating the field and walkers filling it.

"Uh guys? We've got a problem." she points out the window at the herd coming towards them.

"We need to move. There's no way we can fight a herd that size." Daryl says "Everyone get your shit and get to the cars."

"What about Rick? Shane?" Lori asks, looking around "Carl? Baby we gotta go."

"I'm betting that was Rick's doing." Daryl points to the blazing barn.

Everyone is running around like mad, trying to get everything in the cars, trying to find Carl. Daryl grabs Sam by the arm as she is walking out the door to load more stuff in the car.

"You get out, with or without me." he looks her dead in the eyes "Don't go pulling no shit, waiting around for me. You get a way out an you go."

She swallows hard and tucks her Browning into her waistband "I will, if you do."

* * *

"This is my farm. I'll die here." Hershel says, grabbing a shotgun and starts shooting at walkers.

"Good a night as any." Daryl jumps over the deck banister.

"I can't find Carl." Lori yells, panicked "He's not in the house."

Sam and Carol go to help Lori search the house one more time. Sam looks at the barn again "Rick probably set the fire, maybe Carl is with him, if he's not here. If that's the case, he'll be fine."

Sam has lost sight of Daryl in all the chaos, but the RV is by the bard as planned, and she can just hear the roar of his bike over the rest of the noise. Sam runs in front of Lori, Beth and Patricia, having lost Carol somehow along the way. Carefully firing rounds into the heads of enclosing walkers. A scream draws her gaze back to where Lori is trying to pry Beth away from Patricia and the walker that grabbed her. A walker grabs her ponytail while she is distracted, but on pure reflex she whips around, shoves the barrel of the Browning under it's chin and blows it away.

T-dog and Andrea stop in Otis' truck and throw the door open, yelling at them to run.

"Carol, she ran off that way." Sam points to Andrea while Lori and Beth jump in the truck.

Andrea nods and takes off in that direction, Sam assesses the already tight cab of the truck and in a quick move, steps on the tire and into the bed of the pick up. She presses herself against the cab, far enough in the middle to avoid the grasping hands, while taking out any she can with her hatchet. Carol is no where in sight and Andrea just got overtaken.

Sam bangs on the roof and yells in the open back window "T-dog, time to go. Move it."

As soon as they are clear of the walkers, Sam crouches in the truck bed and holds onto the cab window for safety. She looks back at the farm as they drive away, the barn burnt down to almost the bare bones. Walkers swarming the vehicles still on the land and no sight of Daryl. Silent tears stream down her face as every awful scenario rushes through her mind, making her see his possible death a hundred different times. They drive until dawn, down little dirt roads Sam hardly recognizes until Lori convinces T-dog to turn around and go back to the highway.

* * *

Sam recognizes their group of cars at the spot where they left Sophia supplies, and sure enough Daryl's bike. Before the truck is even stopped, she jumps out of the bed and rushes to Daryl, throwing her arms around him, almost knocking him over. He returns her tight hug before she pulls away enough to crush her lips into his.

She finally breaks the kiss and gets her excited heat rate under control. "Don't you ever fuckin so that to me again."

"No promises." he says, which is met by an angry glare.

"Is Andrea with you? She saves my life, then I lost her." Carol asks

"I'm goin back." Daryl says, but Rick stops him.

"You can't go back, the herd is probably still there, and there's no way to know where she is."

* * *

"We'll camp here for the night, go for gas and supplies in the morning." Rick decided, with all the vehicles low of fuel.

Daryl steps away from his bike "We found Randall, back at the farm, he was turned, but he wasn't bit."

Rick closes his eyes before speaking "We're all infected. Jenner told me that at the CDC. Whatever this is, we all carry it."

The group bursts out in upset, claiming he should have told them. "I didn't know for sure, you saw how crazy he was."

* * *

Sam throws another log on the fire, trying to ward off the cool, early autumn night.

"You should lead the group. You're a man with honor." Sam hears Carol whisper to Daryl.

"Rick has honor." Daryl quietly responds.

"To keep something like this from us?" Carol starts again.

"I think he did the right think," Sam interrupts "What difference would it have made, knowing a few weeks ago?"

Daryl puts his arm around Sam, Carol looks away, annoyed.

"Daryl," Sam says quietly "can I talk to you about something?"

"Sure." he says, looking at her.

"I know it's bad, coming up on winter and all" she pauses and looks from the fire to him "but I need to find out what happened to my family."


	26. Chapter 26

A/N Hey everyone! So sorry for the lateness of the update this week, was visiting with family and didnt have internet until now. I'm hoping the chapters get even better from here on out. Thanks for the reviews. Much loves 3 Enjoy this one.

* * *

"There's a lot of variables here." Rick points out "How do you know you'll be able to find us again, if you even decide to come back."

"Rick, please," Sam says "I know, it's probably not the smartest idea ever. But I can't go through the rest of my life not knowing. Imagine if you had never found Lori and Carl."

He closes his eyes and sighs, "I know. I just don't like the idea of splitting us up, after everything we've been through."

"Well, Rick, it's really not your decision." Sam says, tired of arguing this "I would love to leave on a good note, maybe with a way to find you guys again if I get back down here. But regardless, I am going. Now I just want to know if I'll have people to come back to?"

"We'll have to work out a concrete plan," he says finally "but yeah, you'll have people to come back to."

"Thank you Rick, really.

* * *

"I just need to work out a plan with Rick, then I'm all set to go." Sam says, approaching Daryl.

"I?" he questions.

"Yeah?" Sam looks confused.

"No."

"What the hell? I thought we talked about this. I'm going back up to Boston. I have to try and find the."

"You're not goin on your own." he clarifies "I'm comin with you."

"We talked about that too, you're Rick's second in command now, I can't take you away from that." she looks at the group "They need you here."

"You said it before, you can't make it on your own out there."

Sam interrupts "What are you saying?"

"Either I'm coming with you, or you ain't goin." he says bluntly.

"You can't do that" Sam whines "You can't force me to be in charge of your safety like that"

"You're not. We've got each others backs. But I'm not letting you do this alone."

She sighs in defeat, knowing there's no arguing him out of this "Alright, let's go figure out how we're gonna meet up with them again."

* * *

"We could leave a trail or something, so y'all can follow it when you get back." Maggie suggests.

Daryl shakes his head "It's gotta be more than that. I don't wanna spend a month goin in circles lookin for scraps of cloth on a tree. We need something a little better."

"What if" Sam suggests "you give us, say six months, then mark a new town on the map for every month after that you'll stay in, or near. You can leave us something on the 'Welcome to whatever' town sign, so we know where you are."

Rick considers it. "Yeah, that's a pretty good plan."

"Course we'll have to go by the moon cycle, not the actual says, since I don't think any of us know the date anymore." Sam points out "But since last night was a full moon, it works out well."

Everyone nods in agreement. Sam pulls out the crinkled map she's had since the beginning and a pen, and hands them to Rick. "You guys have a map too, right?"

Maggie leaves and returns with a map for them and starts marking the towns with numbers like Rick is.

"Rick, one more thing." Daryl says, folding the map up. "We're gonna need a ride to the highway. I don't wanna take one of your rides and leave you without one. An it would be stupid to take the bike in the winter."

"Glen and I can run you back to the highway, or a nearby town, so you can find a suitable ride." Glen nods in agreement.

"You better take care of my brother's bike while I'm gone. I don't wanna come back and find out it's a wreck. Leave it somewhere safe if you gotta."

"Thank you guys, I appreciate it." Sam says, tucking the map safely away and hugging them. "I'll just say bye to everyone else, then we can leave."

Maggie hugs her tight "Be careful. I hope you get some answers."

"Me too." Sam squeezes her beck before slinging her pack over her shoulder.

* * *

Rick stops the car before they get to the heavily congested part of the highway. "Do you want us to help you gather fuel before we head back?"

"Only if you want, you don't have to." Sam offers them a way out.

"How bout we find a car first?" Daryl suggests.

"We're gonna need something that can go offroad and won't have a problem with snow." Sam states, scanning the cars around. "Jeep or truck is out best bet."

"We can always switch too, if the first one doesn't work out." Daryl points out.

"Guys," Glen calls to them "what about this?"

Sam smiles when her eyes come to rest of the lifted Jeep that Glen found. The old wrangler has seen better days, but luckily the previous owner left the soft top on and most of the wear is just from sitting for months. All four tires are good, and lucky for them, the keys are even in the ignition. She looks at Daryl with a huge smile on her face.

"We'll freeze our asses off in that thing. That top aint gonna keep the cold out." he says.

"Daryl, come on. It's perfect, plus it's still kinda warm, during the day anyway." she tries to reason "I've always wanted one. Plus you said yourself we can switch to something else later on."

"You'll need a whole lot of extra gas." Glen states.

"Shut up." Sam whines "Come on, it will be so much fun."

Daryl glances around, not really finding any suitable alternatives "Alright, let's fill her up."

Sam squeals with excitement and starts loading their stuff into the back of the Jeep.

"You wanna check the gas while you're in there?" Daryl asks her, opening the gas tank on a nearby car. He turns to Rick "I'm gonna be kickin myself later, ain't I?"

Rick smiles "Probably, but this trip is going to be hard on her, just let her enjoy the little things."

Daryl nods and starts filling the metal gas can.

"Little under half a tank." Sam yells over to them "Want me and Glen to find more gas cans for you guys?"

* * *

With the Jeep full and a few extra cans in the back, they bid goodbye to Rick and Glen.

"See you in a few months." Rick says with a wave "Stay safe."

Daryl drives the Jeep down the median, avoiding the cars on either side for as long as he can. Sam rolls down the window and enjoys the feel of the wind whipping through her hair.

"Should we stick to the highway? Or try as many back roads as we can?" Sam yells over the wind.

"Back roads will take longer, but it might be safer."

Sam looks at the map and the criss-crossing streets. "They're all so confusing."

"Relax. I can probably get us close to South Carolina before night, I know those roads. We'll map out some more when we stop." he reassures her.

She folds the map again and tucks it safely into her bag. They drive through winding dirt roads, the unpaved paths jostling them around the cab, more than once Sam glances back, making sure all of their stuff is still there. They stop for the night at a little state forest, Sam makes a meager dinner of roasted squirrel and canned green beans.

"We'll need more meat soon, we have maybe enough left to last us another few days." Sam says, smothering her cooking fire.

"I'll see what I can do. I'll go huntin in the morning before we leave."

Sam packs up the rest of their stuff and after some careful maneuvering, manages to lay the front seats almost flat against the back, making a half decent bed.

"Just don't go kickin the horn in yer sleep, the last thing we need is to ring the dinner bell for every walker in a thirty mile radius." Daryl jokes as Sam stretches out on the drivers seat.

She smiles and moves closer to him, resting her head against his neck. He places a soft kiss on the top of her head.


	27. Chapter 27

A/N Hope you guys like this chapter ^_^ As always I love reviews *gimme gimme gimme*. Much loves and enjoy 3

* * *

"This can't be good." Sam comments on the increasing number of stray walkers they have seen today "Think there's a heard nearby?"

"Keep yer fingers crossed." Daryl says "We're gonna be travelin a lot closer to cities now. Less you wanna go the real round about way."

"Haven't we been doing that anyway?" Sam stares at the map she snagged out of the gas station a few miles back.

"We could swing west, head towards the mountains, go through Pennsylvania an New York. Might mean less of these bastards." he says as the Jeep's back tires bump over the downed walkers skull, crushing it.

Sam cringes "That's so disgusting."

"Hell of a lot better than havin to fight them on foot." he shrugs it off "So nwhat are we doin?"

"I don't know." panic suddenly grips her "Maybe we should just head back to Georgia."

"The hell are you talking about?" he slows the car and looks at her.

"Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea." her voice edges on hysteria "We never should have left thr group."

Daryl puts the car in park and turns it off "What's gotten into you? Couple a weeks ago hell an high water wouldn'ta stopped you. What changed?"

"Daryl, they're probably not even alive anymore." she says, her voice catching "What's the point of dragging us both through hell only to find that out?"

"You don't know that," he says "maybe they're fine. But if we don't get up there, you'll never know either way, an you'll spend the rest of your life wonderin. The longer you put it off the harder it'll be to find them."

"I don't think I could take it, if they're turned." tears shimmer in her eyes at just the thought of her baby sister becoming one of those monsters.

"You're strong. You can do it." he reassures her, and adds quietly "An you've got me."

"We'll head towards the mountains, try to avoid the walkers as much as we can." Sam says, swallowing the remaining tears.

"It's getting dark," he says "we'll stay around here tonight."

* * *

Sam lays on the makeshift bed in the Jeep, listening to the thunder rumble above the trees. The storm clouds closed in with the sunset, and she could see far away flashed of lightening, lighting up the forest. The rain starts to fall on the roof of the car.

"This rain is gonna fuck me up. I can't hear a damn thing outside." Daryl gripes, laying next to her.

"We're pretty safe in here, remember a couple of nights ago? They couldn't get in." she looks at him in the dark, hardly able to make out his outline, she scoots closer to him, until only inches separate them.

"We got lucky was all. Don't wanna push it."

"Well complaining isn't gonna make the rain stop any sooner." she says, eyes straining in the dark to make out any of his features. His breath tickles her cheek and before she can talk herself out of it, she presses her lips to his.

"What'r you doin?" he mumbles when she pulls away.

"Distracting you from the rain." she kisses him again.

She runs her tongue over his bottom lip and is rewarded when he opens his mouth and lets her deepen the kiss. Her hand moves to the back of his neck, and her fingers play with the hair at the base of his neck. His arm goes around her, holding her closer. She moves from his lips kissing along his jaw despite the stubble, making her way to his neck and gently grazing the sensitive skin with her teeth, unsure how he will react, but the soft groan urges her on. Her hand travels from his neck, over his shoulders, down his side and works it's way under layers of clothing. Her lips find his again and her hand moves up his back, loving the feel of all that powerful muscle. She can feel the edges of the raised scars that she's only caught glimpses of before and suddenly he jerks back.

"Daryl, what?" she asks, confused.

"Don't." he pulls her hand out from under his shirt. "Just, no."

"I don't care about the scars." she tries to tell him.

"Well, I do." he says sharply, moving away from her slightly.

The sudden absence of body heat makes her shiver, but she stays quiet, trying to figure out a way to make it better.

* * *

Daryl lies on his back, staring at the top of the car, trying to hear past Sam's even breathing and the rain that's now coming down in sheets, for any unusual sounds outside and trying to forget how good her body felt against his. She doesn't actually want him though, he just happened to be the closest person she could latch on to. Nobody's wanted him around his entire life, he's always been in the way. The scars are a permanent reminder of that.

* * *

Daryl's eyes snap open. He lays still, trying to figure out what woke him. The rain has stopped, but the drops from the trees still splatter the roof and ground. Sam is laying practically on top of him, her head on his arm and a leg thrown over him. He slowly tries to move from under her, her as soon as he does her arm tightens, holding him closer. Instead he looks out the windows at the surrounding forest. Grey mist cloaks the trees, making them only darker shadows in the fog, he watches the shapes outside, making sure none of them move before allowing himself to drift in and out of consciousness again.

* * *

Sam opens her eyes when the car rocks slightly. Daryl is still asleep beside her. She peers out the window out the window into the fog and yelps when a hand hit's the passenger side window, rocking the car again.

"Daryl," she shakes his shoulder "wake up. There's a walker outside."

"You know how to take care of 'em" he tries to roll over "Have at it."

Before she can say anything more, the car shakes again and Daryl is sitting up, fully awake.

"Where's my knife?" he asks "How many are out there?"

"I don't know." Sam says, panicked "I didn't check, and your knife was with all your stuff, right?"

"We gotta find out how many are out there, if it's only a few we can take them out, but any more than that an we gotta get out here." he says, sitting back with his knife.

"It's so foggy, I can't see."

"Shh." he puts a finger to his lips and listens hard to the sound of the walkers outside. More hands slap at the car, Sam covers her mouth to keep quiet "Sounds like there's at least twenty of 'em out there, an without using out guns an attractin more, I don't like our odds."

"So what do we do? Will we be able to get through them in this?" Sam whispers.

"I guess we could try, if it doesn't work, we figure something else out." Daryl jumps in the drivers seat, starts the car and hands Sam the knife "Take out any that get close enough, but don't open the window enough to let one grab you."

The sun starts to burn off the fog, Daryl was right about the numbers. The car bucks forward but the tires start to spin, kicking up mud and wet leaves.

"I thought this piece of shit was made for ground like this." Daryl growls, hitting the steering wheel and flooring the pedal.

"It's been sitting all night, the tires are sunk." Sam points out, driving the knife into a walkers eye.

The tires catch and the Jeep shoots forward, Daryl jerks the wheel hard and they narrowly avoiding slamming then into a tree. Sam looks behind them and watches the walkers shamble after them but they are quickly disappearing into the woods.


	28. Chapter 28

A/N What do you guys think of these chapters so far? I wanna know! Hope you like this one. Much loves and enjoy! 3

* * *

The full moon shines through the trees, now losing most of their leaves.

"We'll probably get there in a few days, maybe another week or so, depending on what the roads are like." Daryl says.

"I know," Sam sighs "the streets are going to be a mess. I don't know why she had to live in the city."

"Maybe it won't be as bad as Atlanta, it's a smaller state." he tries to comfort her.

"I really don't want to have to go in on foot, but I have a feeling we might have to." Sam exhales and watches the cloud of breath disperse in the cold air. "Do you think it will start snowing soon?"

"I wouldn't rule it out." Daryl shrugs "But the days are still sorta warm, nothing will stick for another few weeks at least."

Sam listens to the fire crackling in the quiet night "What's been your favorite state so far?"

"We ain't exactly sight seein on this trip." Sam gives him an exasperated glare "I like it here well enough. Huntin's been good."

Sam sighs and shakes her head "Yeah, New York is pretty nice, I came here a few times when I was a little kid, but I don't remember much."

"Why don't we stay here for a few days?" he suggests.

"Why?" Sam asks, confused.

"Cuz I'm tired of drivin, we haven't stopped for more than a day since we left Georgia. Might be nice to stay somewhere for a few days." he shrugs again "There's a town not too far from here, maybe we can refresh some supplies, even stay in a house if you want."

"That might be nice, be able to stretch out and sleep in an actual bed." Sam smiles.

"First thing in the morning we'll find a place to stay for a few days." Daryl nods "Sound good?"

* * *

"What about up there?" Sam points to a gap in the trees with just a dirt road. They can hardly see the house at the end through the trees

"We'll see what it's like , sure." Daryl turns the jeep onto the road, cursing at all the holes.

The cabin is set in the middle of a decent sized clearing. The place it's self doesn't look like it could be more than four or five rooms. Daryl drives the jeep off the driveway and onto the grass, parking as close to the porch as he can.

"I'll go in, do a quick sweep, make sure it's clear. Then I'll come get you." Daryl says, shutting off the car.

"Um, no." she protests "You're not leaving me in the car. We go in together. At least I can watch your back then."

Daryl concedes, knowing at this point how pointless it is to try and argue with her about things like this.

"Fine, but you stay behind me at all times. I don't want you wanderin off until we finish the sweep."

"I'm not a child." she says, irritated, he just keeps staring at her "Ok, fine. With you at all times."

The front door swings open when he nudges it with his foot, he carefully steps on the floor boards, trying to make as little noise as possible. The front room takes up almost the whole front of the house, with a large stone fireplace on one wall. Daryl opens both of the small closets and thoroughly inspects them before moving on to the other room at the front of the house, a small kitchen with a door to the side yard. Almost all the cabinets are open and empty, the pantry is the same way. His footsteps echo slightly as he walks through the hall. But only his. He turns and Sam is gone.

"Sam." he whispers loudly, not wanting to alert anything that might be in the last two rooms "Sam, where the fuck are you?"

He walks back into the kitchen, knowing that was the last place he saw her, his heart starts pounding when he sees the open door leading to the yard. He runs to the door shouting, not caring about the noise. "Damn it Sam, answer me."

He pulls up short when he sees her kneeling on the ground next to a well pump.

"What's up?" she asks, concerned but oblivious to the heart attack she almost gave him.

"Damn it woman, what did I say?" he yells at her.

She gives him a sheepish smile "Sorry. I saw the pump and just wanted to see of it works."

"An you couldn't wait another five minutes?" she just shrugs "Argh! Woman, you're gonna drive me nuts. Can we go finish checking the house now?"

She smiles and stands up "Yes. And I promise I won't wander off this time."

* * *

"Look. It's even got a wood stove, I can cook on an actual stove!" Sam rambles excitedly, checking out the kitchen "And if we can find a few big pots, I bet we could even take hot baths!"

Daryl shakes his head from the living room, trying to get a fire started in the fire place. "You have no idea how much wood it's gonna take to burn both of these? An you wanna cook and boil water? You're crazy."

"I saw a pile of wood out there, it just needs to be split. It should be more than enough for a few days."

"You go find an axe an have fun with that. I'm gonna work on securing this place and getting this damn fire started."

* * *

Daryl drops the skinned and gutted squirrels and woodchuck in the sink. "I even did all the hard work you ya."

Sam stares at the pile of raw meat "Thanks? Wait until you see what I found though."

"What do you mean found?" he asks.

"I was just checking out the place while you were gone." she ignores his groan and opens the pantry door, setting aside a few shelves she pushes a door open "It's a root cellar. Some of the stuff isn't good anymore, but there's so much left."

"Hm." he stares down into the dim room.

"That's it? 'Hm'? Daryl, we can have a feast. And probably still take some with us when we leave." she is beaming "This place is perfect."

"Don't get too comfortable, we still have to leave eventually."

"Yeah, yeah." she says, her good mood still not hindered "You go do whatever you do while I make dinner."

The sun sinks low in the trees and the temperature drops. Daryl throws another log in the fire place and the delicious smell of cooking food wafts through the house, making his mouth water. Sam walks into the room with a mug in each hand.

"I couldn't find any bowls." she says, handing one to him.

"This works." he says, sitting in the big chair by the fire.

Sam sits down on his lap, her legs over the arm of the chair, leaning on his chest, "Let me know how it is."

"Oh… ok." he says, thrown off by her seating choice.

* * *

Both of the mugs sit on the floor, empty, like the soup pan in the kitchen, their stomachs are more full than they have been in weeks. Sam is curled up on his lap still, her head resting against his neck, staring peacefully at the fire.

"Can I ask you something?" she asks quietly, still staring at the fire.

"Shoot." he says, rubbing his cheek against the top of her head.

"Who gave you all those scars?"

His body goes rigid, she lifts her head up and her eyes search his face "You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

He is quiet for a long time, "My old man, mostly. He had a hell of a temper and liked his belt a little too much. Couple from my mom too."

"I'm so sorry."

He shakes his head "Was a long time ago. I "

Her kiss cuts him off. She places her left hand on his cheek. "It's not ok. You didn't deserve that. Nobody does."

He shrugs and opens his mouth to say something else and she kisses hi again.

"No," she looks at him "and I'm gonna keep telling you that until you believe it."

Her lips claim his and he immediately opens his mouth for her. Without breaking the kiss, she moves to straddle his lap, her knees on either side of his hips, her fingers tangle in his hair, careful not to grip too tight, she nips and sucks at hi bottom lip, swallowing his groans. She moves his hands off the arms of the chair and places them on her hips. His fingers grasp at her, digging into the cloth of her jeans, causing her to involuntarily rock forward. She slowly unbuttons his flannel shirt until it's just his under shirt between her hands and his skin. Even through the fabric, his stomach muscles twitch as she runs her hands over them. She slides her hands around his back, still over his shirt.

Her lips move from his lips to his ear, "Don't just sit there, if you want to touch me, then touch me."

His hands move hesitantly from her hips, sliding up her sides, under her shirt. She rocks her hips back and forth, feeling the hard length under her, trying to send his silent encouragement, but his hands stop just shy of her bra.

Trying not to show her mild frustration, she bites his neck, harder than she has in the past. He digs his nails into her back, making her arch against him. Her control starts to fray and she kisses him hard, almost bruising her lips. Her hips work out a rhythm and she moans into the kiss, his fingers grip her sides so hard, she knows they're going to leave mark, but he stays still.

"Daryl, please." she pants, kissing his neck, her whole body pulsing. "I need you to do something, touch me, please don't just sit there."

He pulls his head away from her and loosens his grip on her "I, uh" he starts, his voice strained "I gotta do a quick patrol outside before we go to sleep."

* * *

He gently pushes her off his lap and stands, quickly turning away from her so he doesn't see the look on her face. He grabs his poncho and crossbow and leaves the warm house.

The night air is like a slap in the face, he walks the perimeter quickly, the full moon providing more than enough light.

"You stupid fuck," he shakes his head and sits on the front steps "probably blew it like some little punk bitch."

All those girls him and Merle brought home and he'd never actually sealed the deal with any of them for one reason or another. Sure, he's messed around with them, but that's it, of course Merle didn't know. Merle who had been getting laid on a regular basis since sixteen, if he had known, he would have been absolutely merciless.

When Daryl walks back in the house, Sam is curled up, asleep on the chair. He carefully picks her up, trying his best not to wake her, and carries her to the bed. Hopefully he didn't screw things up too bad earlier.


End file.
